
SINGAPORE PREMIERE
2K Restoration
Director: Mary Stephen
Runtime: 62 min
Country: Canada, France
Language: French, Mandarin with English subtitles
Rating: R21
![]()
Synopsis
Prior to being Éric Rohmer’s long-term editor, Mary Stephen already revealed her prowess in shaping emotional intimacy on screen through her debut feature, Ombres de Soie.
Set in a surreal 1935 Shanghai that is unmistakably filtered through 1970s Paris, the film follows two Chinese women, whose schoolgirl friendship has evolved into something far more complicated. Intimate glances and gestures between the two, paired with confessional voiceovers, reveal a quiet yearning that threatens to spill over.
With traces of inspiration from Marguerite Duras and Alain Resnais, Ombres de Soie is a film caught between worlds, feeling historical yet modern, distant yet intimate. Poetic in its composition, it evokes the visual textures of Eileen Chang’s writing, where interiors, silences, and lingering gazes carry the depth of memory and desire. Unravelling like an essay, the film charts the tension between the women’s shared desire for stability and the compulsion to question that very desire.
The screenings of Ombres de Soie will be accompanied by the short film Ying & Summer (2011, Gladys Ng)

Ying & Summer (2011)
Director: Gladys Ng
Runtime: 11 mins
Country: Australia
Language: Mandarin, Chinese with English subtitles
Rating: PG

Synopsis
Newly arrived in Melbourne, shy Chinese student Ying (Jenny Zhou) navigates the quiet loneliness of migrant life until she meets Summer (Charlotte Nicdao), a radiant and outgoing local. As their unlikely friendship unfolds, Ying & Summer explores displacement, connection and what it means to feel at home in a foreign city.
For more screenings of Ombres de Soie + Ying & Summer, please click here.
Friends of AFA members, please read the membership guide on how to purchase your discounted tickets and redeem your complimentary tickets.
Oldham Theatre’s opening hours
For further assistance, please contact us at ticketing@asianfilmarchive.org
—