Pride in Ordinary Times Beyond Trauma: Five Contemporary Chinese Queer Shorts For much of its history, queer Chinese-language cinema has often been understood through narratives of marginalisation, secrecy, and survival. From censorship and social stigma to familial pressure and legal precarity, queer lives have frequently appeared on screen through the lens of struggle. While these histories remain important, they are not the only stories that deserve to be told. Pride in Or

Modern Masturbation Allegory (2024) Director: Li Xinyi Duration: 24 min Language: English, Mandarin Subtitles: English Country/Region: United Kingdom With a bold and experimental visual language, Modern Masturbation Allegory turns its gaze directly towards the body itself. Combining personal footage, interviews, diary filmmaking, and experimental montage, it transforms masturbation—a topic long considered taboo—into an exploration of desire, loneliness, pleasure, and self-und

Christian (2024) Poster Director: Pan Chuqiao Duration: 11 min Language: Mandarin Subtitles: Chinese, English Country/Region: United Kingdom Through the perspective of a young Asian man living in London, Christian explores the complex intersections of sexuality, faith, race, and migration. Religion has long been framed as an opposing force within queer narratives. Rather than reproducing this binary, however, the film presents a nuanced portrait of an individual continually n

New Beijing, New Marriage (2009) Director: Popo Fan Duration: 18 min Language: Mandarin Chinese Subtitles: English Country/Region: Mainland China Filmed on Valentine’s Day in 2009, New Beijing, New Marriage follows two same-sex couples in Beijing as they prepare for their weddings and bring their celebrations into public space. Faced with curiosity, scrutiny, scepticism, and misunderstanding from passers-by, they present their love openly and unapologetically. Today, the docu

My Dear Dear Hom (2026) Director: Yue Ran Duration: 20 min Languages: Sichuanese dialects, English, French Subtitles: Chinese, English Country/Region: Mainland China, Switzerland After marrying her partner in Switzerland, filmmaker Yue Ran returns to China and turns her camera towards the long and candid conversations she shares with her mother. Deeply personal in nature, My Dear Dear Home establishes an inherent dramatic tension from the outset: on one side stands a daughter

The Night (2023) Poster Director: Jenny Zhang Duration: 34 min Language: Mandarin, Cantonese Subtitles: Chinese, English Country/Region: Mainland China The Night follows two young women as they gradually come to confront and affirm themselves under the pressures of social norms and family expectations. While the protagonists’ journeys reflect queer experiences familiar to many East Asian family contexts, the film refuses to remain confined within narratives of shame, repressi

Review of The Unbroken: Struck Matches and Things Ignited by Mistake & The lit match and what was mistakenly ignited This is a film about matches. Sukanta Bhattacharya, a Bengali poet, wrote a poem titled Deshlai Kathi. A single matchstick is not enough to burn anything down, yet it carries fire, embodying the tiniest yet most resolute will of a human being. The story of Adamya (The Unbroken) stems directly from this poem. Twenty-three-year-old Palash is a left-wing revolutio

Film Review of Macho Dancer: Neon Lights, Bubbles and Cheap Kisses Neon Lights, Bubbles and Cheap Kisses We tend to equate the body with desire and nudity with seduction. Yet in the desperate struggle for survival in Manila depicted in the film Macho Dancer, the body is the only asset, the only means of expression, and the only form of resistance available to people from the lower social strata. The film lays bare the sordid and seedy nature of the male stripper industry with

Blades of the Guardians: Wind Rises Over the Desert | A Convincing Action System # A well-established action system I had barely any expectations for Blades of the Guardians before stepping into the cinema. To some extent, this lowering of expectations has become my habitual mindset when watching domestic genre films released in recent years. Yet the movie boasts a rare caliber rarely seen nowadays: a level of refinement crafted with sincere and rigorous effort. The action se

Green Ray Screening | Brokeback Mountain 20th Anniversary Special Screening Director Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain not only marked a major turning point in his creative career after Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but also brought his prowess in cross-cultural storytelling, emotional dialectics and portrayal of human nature to new heights. Adapted from the novel by Annie Proulx, this work places his signature depiction of delicate emotions within a wholly different context: th

European Premiere of Aunt Jiang Director / Cinematographer / Editor: Zeng Tangni Cast: Jiang Fei, Zhang Yihan, Li Xinmiao, Yang Wenlong, Zheng Tianci, Zhang Shiyu Special Cast: Tian Yajuan, Zhang Fushan, Zhang Lijuan Music Performer: Ishibashi Miko Production Year: 2023 Film Genre: Documentary Production Country/Region: Chinese Mainland, Malaysia Language: Northeast Dialect, Mandarin Chinese Duration: 174 minutes Subtitles: Chinese and English Subtitles Film Synopsis A grassr

Colony Cannes Film Review｜Spectacle of Combat and Sacrifice *The Spectacle of Battle and Sacrifice "This will undoubtedly be the most commercially oriented film I have ever made so far... I am trying to draw on the strengths of Train To Busan and Hellbound to create an engaging movie." — Yeon Sang-ho #Box office and word of mouth As of June 1, 2026, the cumulative domestic audience admissions for Colony in South Korea have exceeded 3.47 million, ranking second on the annual d

Bitter Sweet Ballad (2023) Director: Liang Junjian / Tang Tao / Liu Zhangbolong Cast: Quan Yufei / Zhang Zhanhao / Wang Luyao / Feng Xiaoyun Genre: Documentary Production Country/Region: Chinese Mainland Language: Mandarin Chinese Runtime: 108 minutes At Beijing Dandelion Middle School, four choir students use singing to resist the instability of fate. Coming from different regions across China, they may be forced to leave school at any moment due to migration, economic hards

The Botanist (2025) Director: Jing Yi Screenwriter: Jing Yi Cast: Yesili Jiahesilik / Ren Zihan / Elamazan Sahet / Jomayang Songhart / Nudauer Aaron Genre: Drama / Romance / Fantasy Production Country/Region: Chinese Mainland Language: Kazakh / Mandarin Chinese Runtime: 96 minutes In a remote valley village on the northern borderlands of Xinjiang, a lonely Kazakh boy named Arsin finds companionship in plants. Grass, trees, and flowers become the only language he truly underst

Mothertongue (2025) Screenplay: Lü Zhang / Shuyi Liu Cast: Bai Baihe / Wang Chuanjun / Liu Dan / Peng Jin / Shuyi Liu Genre: Drama / Romance Production Country/Region: Chinese Mainland Language: Mandarin Chinese Runtime: 122 minutes A film about loss and disappearance, about local language and memory, and about the slow reconstruction of the self upon returning home. Zhang Lu once again turns his gaze toward individuals who drift within cultural in-between spaces. After spend

Cannes Film Review of Paper Tiger: Between Seeing Clearly and Exposing the Truth & Between seeing the truth clearly and exposing it outright What kind of film is worthy of making the entire audience stand up and applaud for ten minutes straight before leaving after its Cannes premiere? James Gray's newly written and directed work Paper Tiger may hold the answer. Starring Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver and Miles Teller, the film has been officially selected for the Competitio

Cannes Film Review of Dora: A Kiss Upon the Scars & A Kiss on the Scars In 1905, Sigmund Freud published Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria. The narrative of this case study later became known as the "Dora case", an extremely famous and highly controversial text in the history of psychoanalysis. Eighteen-year-old Ida, given the pseudonym "Dora" by Freud, sought treatment for persistent nervous coughing, periodic aphonia and migraines. Over three months of therapy,

The Crossing (2018) Director: Bai Xue Screenwriters: Bai Xue / Lin Meiru / Sun Yan / Zhao Danna Cast: Huang Yao / Sun Yang / Tang Jiawen / Ni Hongjie / Kong Mei Yee Genre: Drama Production Country/Region: Chinese Mainland Language: Mandarin / Cantonese Runtime: 99 minutes Bai Xue crafts a coming-of-age fable centred on a teenage girl navigating the border between Shenzhen and Hong Kong — a story of youth, desire, and unstable identity. Peipei travels between the two cities ev

Cannes Film Review of Titanic Ocean | Sparkling Mermaid Dreamland % Mermaid Dream With Sparkling Ripples Titanic Ocean marks the feature directorial debut of Greek female director Konstatina Kotzamani. The film focuses on a boarding school in Japan dedicated to training professional mermaids, where teenage girls undergo rigorous training, dreaming of becoming "real mermaids". A co-production between Greece, Germany, Romania, France, Spain and Japan, the film held its world pr

Review of Signs | Our Home [ Our Home ] Writing about Shyamalan is an unsettling undertaking. There is inherently an insurmountable chasm between written words and moving images. Elegant film criticism often relies on carefully crafted prose to stir sensory perception; this literary dance transports our consciousness back to the very moment we first encountered a piece of footage, letting us relive that initial viewing experience all over again. In essence, film criticism can