The Year of the Dragon begins with a bumper six titles in the Berlinale from China, making up for a reduced EFM presence from Hong Kong ahead of Filmart.
China continues to hold a prominent position at the Berlinale, with six features by mainland Chinese directors selected across Encounters, Panorama, Forum and Generation.
European sales agents such as The Match Factory and Films Boutique are representing some of these new Chinese titles, exhibiting a growing appetite for quality Chinese-language films. Chinese sales agents Rediance and Parallax Films are also gaining a stronger international foothold. They not only represent Chinese-language titles in top festivals, but also pick up non-Chinese productions. Rediance has Encounters title Sleep With Your Eyes Open by German-Argentinian director Nele Wohlatz on its EFM slate while Parallax handled Japanese director Yui Kiyohara’s Remembering Every Night, which played Forum in 2023.
Emerging Chinese talent in the Berlinale Shorts competition include Lin Yihan’s Sojourn To Shangri-La and Huang Shuli’s Goodbye First Love, while filmmaker Zhou Tao will play 53-minute documentary The Periphery Of The Base in Forum Expanded.
Rotterdam highlighted Hong Kong director Scud, including the premiere of Naked Nations — Tribe Hong Kong, while fellow Hong Kong director Susie Au premiered She Fell To Earth in Tiger Competition. Both titles are seeking distribution and will not be represented at EFM.
However, continuing the momentum from Rotterdam, Hong Kong director Ray Yeung returns to Berlinale’s Panorama with his latest LGBTQ+ drama All Shall Be Well. Elysa Wendi and Lee Wai Shing will have the international premiere of their 29-minute documentary Room 404, a Poland-Hong Kong collaboration executive produced by Peter Yam, in Forum Expanded.
A few Hong Kong sales and production companies will attend EFM as buyers, but many are staying away as they prepare for Filmart, which takes place less than three weeks after Berlin.
Festival
Above The Dust
Dir. Wang Xiaoshuai
Chinese director Wang returns with the second instalment of his Homeland trilogy, which began with 2019’s So Long, My Son, winner of Berlin’s Silver Bear best actress for Yong Mei and best actor for Wang Jingchun. Yong returns to star in the new film, along with Zu Feng (also in Panorama title Brief History Of A Family), Li Jun and child actor Ouyang Wenxin. Playing in Generation Kplus, Above The Dust follows a boy who dreams of having a water pistol, which his dying grandfather promises to get him from beyond the grave. Producers are China’s Dongchun Films and the Netherlands’ Lemming Film. Wang was in Berlin’s Competition in 2001 with Beijing Bicycle, winner of the Silver Bear grand jury prize, and In Love We Trust, which picked up best screenplay in 2008.
Contact: The Match Factory
All Shall Be Well
Dir. Ray Yeung
Having played Suk Suk in Panorama in 2020, Hong Kong director Yeung returns to the same Berlinale sidebar with his fourth feature, an emotive LGBTQ+ drama about bereavement and unspoken prejudice revolving around a lesbian couple in their twilight years. When one of them dies unexpectedly, the other struggles to retain both her dignity and the home they shared for more than 30 years. The cast features Patra Au and Tai Bo, who won best supporting actress and best actor respectively at the Hong Kong Film Awards for Suk Suk, along with veteran Maggie Li and rising actor Leung Chung Hang (Zero To Hero). Producers include the Suk Suk team of Teresa Kwong, Chowee Leow, Michael J Werner and Sandy Yip.
Contact: Films Boutique
Brief History Of A Family
Dir Lin Jianjie
Chinese director Lin’s feature debut premiered at Sundance last month ahead of its European bow in Berlin’s Panorama strand. The drama centres on a middle-class household whose seemingly harmonious life takes a turn when their son brings home a schoolmate from a very different background, exposing hidden fears and tensions. The cast includes Zu Feng (Summer Of Changsha), Guo Keyu (Red Cherry) and Sun Xilun. Producers are Lou Ying, Wang Yiwen and Zheng Yue for this China-France-Denmark-Qatar co‑production. Director Lin graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and his shorts include A Visit while his latest, Hippopotami, is in post.
Contact: Films Boutique
The Great Phuket
Dir. Liu Yaonan
Featuring non-professional actors, this debut feature in Generation 14plus follows a teenager who discovers a strange underground shelter while being evicted from his family home amid the mass demolition in the Great Phuket district of south China. Producers on the Hong Kong-France-Germany-Belgium collaboration are Cyriac Auriol, Shan Zuolong, Dries Phlypo and Caroline Henkel. Chinese director Liu graduated from Beijing Normal University before entering the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Art de Bourges in France to further his studies in contemporary arts and cinema.
Contact: Cao Liuying, Parallax Films (Asia, excluding China); MPM Premium (rest of world)
Republic
Dir. Jin Jiang
Chinese filmmaker Jin’s latest documentary won the Mecenat award at Busan in October and will make its European premiere in the Berlinale’s Forum section. It was filmed at Republic, a secret place in Beijing where young people who believe in communism gather and follow the lifestyle of hippies, revealing an unexplored facet of contemporary China. Producer Guo Xiaodong is the founder of Singapore-based Levo Films, which co-produced 2021 Berlinale short The Men Who Wait, and of Beijing’s New Asian Filmmakers Collective. Jin’s previous feature-length documentaries include Shang’ajia and The Broken Ridge.
Contact: New Asian Filmmakers Collective
She Sat There Like All Ordinary Ones
Dir. Qu Youjia
This debut feature in Generation 14plus is a coming-of-age drama about a high-school student who wants to make an impression by taking the blame for a theft carried out by his classmate. The cast is led by Zhang Taiwen from 2022 Cannes Palme d’Or-winning short film The Water Murmurs and Miao Jijun. She Sat There Like All Ordinary Ones is produced by Beijing’s Booy Media and Rediance. Director Qu’s credits include award-winning short Meijing and Together Apart, which won best short film at the 2019 First Film Festival in Xining and was selected for Rotterdam’s Bright Future mid-length competition.
Contact: Rediance
Some Rain Must Fall
Dir. Qiu Yang
Set to premiere in Encounters, Chinese director Qiu’s feature debut is an intimate drama about a 40-year-old housewife who is forced to confront the wreckage of her life when past events resurface that pushes her into an unknown future. This China-US-France-Singapore co-production is produced by Cannes Camera d’Or winning producer Jeremy Chua (Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell), Mike Goodridge (Triangle Of Sadness), Alex Lo and Mélissa Malinbaum. Qiu earned accolades for A Gentle Night, winner of Cannes’ short film Palme d’Or in 2017; O, which premiered at Venice’s virtual reality competition in 2019; and She Runs, winner of the Leitz Cine discovery prize at Critics’ Week in Cannes, also in 2019.
Contact: Flavien Eripret, Goodfellas
Market
Seven Killings
Dir. Gao Qunshu
Zhang Yi (Full River Red), Huang Zhizhong (The Eight Hundred) and Lang Yueting (Love Education) star in this period spy thriller, which is an adaptation of Mai Jia’s bestselling novel of the same name. Set in Nanjing city in 1940 during the Japanese occupation, Seven Killings follows an enigmatic secret agent who risks his life by manoeuvring between the Japanese army, the government and China’s Military Statistics Bureau. Produced by the Bona Film Group, the film opened in China in November. Chinese director Gao is known for 2012’s Beijing Blues, winner of the Golden Horse best film award, and 2009’s The Message, which he co-directed with Chen Kuo-fu.
Contact: Distribution Workshop
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