Stonewalling

Lynn lives with her grandparents in Meicheng, a small Hunanese city unsettled by an ongoing rape-murder investigation. With little structure to regulate her life outside of school, where she is bullied, Lynn begins smuggling and reselling confiscated mobile phones with her friend, which leads to encounters with the city’s seedier inhabitants.

In a small northern Chinese city in 1997, Judge Tian privately struggles with the loss of his daughter, killed by a stolen car in a hit-and-run accident. On the bench he encounters Qiuwu, a mechanic accused of stealing two cars. Perhaps influenced by his emotional state, the outwardly impassive judge imposes an almost-obsolete criminal law on Qiuwu that sentences him to death for his crime. Desperate to mitigate his sentence, Qiuwu agrees to donate his kidney to a rich businessman dying of a terminal illness, hoping at the very least that his impoverished family may profit from his demise.

14-year-old Honggui is forced to live with her uncle and aunt in the countryside. She is not wanted by them, nor was she wanted by her parents, who apparently intended to farm her out to family for two years so they could work in the city. Years pass. When she tries to make contact, her real mother is too busy to take her call.

Hong Kong, at the height of the protests. A young woman visits her father, whom she has not seen for a while. Her plan is to have lunch with him before the Umbrella Movement reaches a critical juncture. Celebrated, committed filmmaker Ying Liang contributed with a beautiful moving short with an special angle asking: Where do we live, and what is citizenship?

A mainland Chinese filmmaker, exiled to Hong Kong for her politically-charged work, reunites with her mother on a trip to Taiwan.

The Chinese police visit head-teacher Chen at home. Her daughter, a dissident filmmaker living in Hong Kong, plans yet another critical film about China's colonization of the small autonomous territory. The authorities demand that Chen travel to her daughter to stop the film project. What they do not take into account is that Chen and her daughter lost contact long ago.

The mother of a murderer awaits and prepares to meet her son. The true story of a man who killed six Shanghai policemen after suffering police beatings as a punishment for riding an unlicensed bicycle. This film was produced as a part of the Jeonju Digital Project.

A young couple grows apart, throwing themselves into the arms of others. She is an independent young woman who works in a florist's shop, he is an immature brooder working as a security guard

Lynn has been living away from her husband Kenji and daughter, enjoying a pseudo-single life in China. In pursuit of freedom, she dreams of building a house in her hometown, now a burgeoning tourist hub. She works closely with Long, a married colleague, and their growing mutual attraction complicates her plans. Facing gender biases and local bureaucracy, Lynn strikes a land deal, causing conflicts between the village councilor and his divorced daughter. As her house nears completion, Lynn realises it has come at the cost of estrangement from her husband, daughter, and even herself.

Lin Sen lives with her father in a tiny village in China. This twelve-year-old girl has begun to notice a change in her relationship with her father. But Li Sen isn’t sure if this has something to do with her new-found knowledge of puberty and sexuality or is simply due to the cold winter.

In the later stages of the epidemic, a young couple who constantly argued over work, a partner who had a conflict, a friend who didn't show up for a long time, their video chats were interwoven and recorded on a computer screen with anxiety, boredom, and hope.

Ryuji Otsuka and Huang Ji are the ‘main characters' in this very personal homemade documentary that's funny, angry, scary and stirring all at once. He's the Japanese director of the film; she's his wife and a prizewinning filmmaker in her own right. For independent artists and filmmakers, finding an affordable place to live with their young daughter is a never-ending struggle. A side effect of China's astonishing prosperity is sky-high property prices – about $10,000 per square metre in Beijing. The landlords, movers and neighbours they encounter seem bent on driving them nuts. But never underestimate the resilience, determination and lung power of enraged, protective young Chinese parents. Otsuka's sometimes concealed camera reveals intimately how life feels, from ground level, in urban China today.