Crosscurrent

Flowers of Taipei: Taiwan New Cinema

With Taiwan remaining in the grip of martial law in 1982, a group of filmmakers from that country set out to establish a cultural identity through cinema and to share it with the world. This engaging documentary looks at the movement's legacy.

Passages

Two students travel across rural China looking for some meaning to their lives.

Number 23

A son, whose relationship with his mother is strained after his father’s disappearance, becomes acquainted with telephone dating service operator No. 23, bringing unexpected changes to him and his mother.

Runaway

After failing to get into college, Lu Lin has to take up the same job as his father, a railway mechanic, when his dream is to work in the Air Force. Lu Lin takes it one day at a time and lives in constant fear of what the future will bring.

Just an Alien

Chinese photographer Weicheng Hua meets the vagabond Zhighuo Sun in 2015 at an amusement park just outside Chongqing. Hua’s first film is an affectionate portrait of the drug-using, possibly psychotic, sensitive and always cheerful Sun, who moves through the amusement park like a kind of shaman, holding forth about mystical concepts such as “the principle of zero” and “understanding the self.” The central figure seems to fit perfectly into this odd environment.

小英雄雨来

The Legend of the Resourceful Princess

After rebirth, Mu Yunyao never did three things: be kind to others, leave a chance for evil, and believe in true feelings. She was sinister and reckless, who would rather turn the world upside down than stoop to compromise. However, there was always a cold-faced prince tailing her secretly, who wanted to marry and adore her.

The King of Masks

Wang Bianlian is an aging street performer known as the King of Mask for his mastery of Sichuan Change Art in a true story. His wife left him with and infant son over 30 years ago. The son died from illness at age 10. This left Wang a melancholy loner aching for a male descendent to learn his rare and dying art.

Cliff Walkers

In the puppet state of Manchukuo in the 1930s, four Communist party special agents, after returning to China, embark on a secret mission. Sold out by a traitor, the team find themselves surrounded by threats on all sides.

Destiny

As a young couple stops and rests in a small village inn, the man is abducted by Death and is sequestered behind a huge doorless, windowless wall. The woman finds a mystic entrance and is met by Death, who tells her three separate stories set in exotic locales, all involving circumstances similar to hers.

John Rabe

A true-story account of a German businessman who saved more than 200,000 Chinese during the Nanjing massacre in 1937-38.

Shock Treatment

Hélène Masson visits her friend Gérôme Savignat in the isolated rejuvenation clinic owned by Dr. Devilers and his partner Dr. Berbard. But after a series of tragic events, Hélène goes further in her investigation of the clinic.