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

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/5c8458_0bb7344c12204791bc8ef1ce07c6eda2/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

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 hardship, or family circumstances. For them, spring resembles the drifting seeds of a dandelion — never guaranteed where they might land, nor when they might depart again.

Within the film, music becomes the only emotional anchor these teenagers can hold onto while facing an uncertain future. Their voices travel through classrooms, playgrounds, and fleeting moments of adolescence, carrying with them silent anxieties surrounding separation, movement, and growing up. Rather than portraying displacement as disappearance, the film suggests it may instead be the beginning of another spring yet to arrive.

Structured around movement and connected through song, Bitter Sweet Ballad functions like the quartet’s minuet — oscillating between lightness and melancholy. It offers the programme a brief yet luminous breath, allowing voices not yet fully heard by the world to momentarily remain suspended on screen.

Director Introduction

Liang Junjian is an associate professor and doctoral supervisor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Tsinghua University, as well as a documentary director and producer. He began creating documentaries in 2007 and served as a visiting scholar at the Department of Anthropology, University of South Carolina from 2015 to 2016. His documentary Chronicle of 2008 was shortlisted for the 2010 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam.

Tang Tao earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from Tsinghua University and further studied Film at the University of Southern California in the United States. The short films he directed, including Poplars and Street Lamps and How to Kill Juanjuan, have won numerous awards at home and abroad.

Liu Zhangbolong graduated from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, and the School of Visual Arts in New York. He currently lives and works in New York and Beijing. His works often take science as the starting point and are presented through visual forms.

Film Recommendation

With delicate and authentic shots, this film delves into the lives of these migrant children. It depicts their pursuit of music, their confusion and resolve along the journey of growth, while also laying bare the complex social realities behind their stories.

What makes this film most precious is that it never uses its lens to amplify sympathy. Instead, it invites every audience member to see the truth of life through the children's songs: growth is essentially a continual process of reconciling with partings. And resilience means recognizing the true nature of life, yet still choosing to sing an off-key song for one's dreams.

— Yang Han

Screening Info

This screening event will be held at King's College London from 15:00 to 17:30 on Saturday, June 13 and Saturday, June 20, 2026.

Ticket link:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/spring-quartet-screening-of-bitter-sweet-ballad-2023-tickets-1991516645898

The specific screening venue:

KIN 616 (K6.63), King's Building, King's College London Strand Campus, Strand, London, WC2R 2LS

Please do not be late for the screening.

There will be an online Q&A session lasting about 20 minutes after the screening. Interested audience members are welcome to stay.

[Post-Screening Talk]

Tang Tao is a new-generation director with a keen eye for reality and profound humanistic care. He earned his bachelor's degree from Tsinghua University and pursued his postgraduate studies at the University of Southern California in the United States. His short films *Poplars and Street Lamps* and *How to Kill Juanjuan* have won numerous awards at home and abroad, earning him a reputation as one of the most talented young directors.

After returning to China, Tang Tao started his career with musicals. With his distinctive cinematography and expert performance direction, he created the first well-received domestic musicals Schrödinger's Cat and The Teens.

The documentaries The University and Dandelions Before the Wind, for which he served as director and editing supervisor, have also received nominations and awards at many domestic film festivals.