Directed by Cai Chengjie • Drama • With Tian Tian, Gao Pengcheng, Wang Qilin, Shuyan Feng • 2018 • 120 minutes
Winner of the top prize at the Rotterdam Film Festival, director Cai Chengjie’s debut feature is, like its titular protagonist, unexpectedly powerful and fiercely unpredictable.
Deemed cursed by the local villagers, three-time widow Er Hao (Tian Tian) has her hands full with a rogue fireworks explosion, a tagalong teenager, and a veritable army of crazed local men who can’t keep their hands off her. Turned away when she seeks shelter from her neighbors and forced to take up residence in a cold camper van, Er Hao’s future looks as bleak as the stark, snowy countryside.
But a series of fluke changes in fortune causes Er Hao to embrace the mystical identity her villagers have assigned to her. As a sort of modern shaman, she steers superstitions into small subversions, helping others who once shunned her and proving that to survive as a woman is a kind of magic.
With a stunning array of visual styles and a genre-exploding approach to storytelling, THE WIDOWED WITCH is a simultaneously idealistic and despairing film—a bleak view wrapped in a fabulist aesthetic, and one that encompasses both magic realism and crushing social satire.
"Appealingly eccentric fable from Chinese newcomer Cai Chengjie." —Guy Lodge, Variety
Directed by Jill Li • Documentary • 2020 • 180 minutes
Embedding herself in the village of Wukan, southern China for several years starting in 2011, first time documentarian Jill Li witnessed an unprecedented experiment in local democracy. Corrupt officials had illegally sold villagers' land, bu...
Directed by Wang Bing • Documentary • 2012 • 153 minutes
One of his generation's most important documentary filmmakers, director Wang Bing is at the height of his powers in THREE SISTERS. The film introduces viewers to 10-year-old YingYing, 6-year-old Zhenzhen and 4-year-old Fenfen, who live alo...
Directed by Pema Tseden • Drama • With Yanbum Gyal, Drolma Kyab, Lochey, Tamdrin Tso • 2012 • 88 minutes
A family on the Himalayan plains discovers their dog is worth a fortune, but selling it comes at a terrible price.
The Tibetan nomad mastiff is an exotic prize dog in China, fetching as much...
