Director: Liu Jiayin
Runtime: 100 mins
Language: Mandarin with English subtitles
Country: China
Rating: PG

Awards

FIPRESCI PRIZE (Forum of New Cinema)
CALIGARI FILM AWARD
2005 Berlin International Film Festival

Synopsis

Transforming documentary into fiction, Liu Jiayin cast her parents and herself as fictionalised versions of themselves. Her father, Liu Zaiping, sells leather bags and disagrees with his wife and daughter over methods to boost the business. A cloud of anxiety over his looming bankruptcy, leading them into sleepless nights.

Produced by the filmmaker when she was 23 years old and a student at the Beijing Film Academy, the film is lauded as one of the best mainland Chinese films of all time by China’s critics and industry insiders, even though it has not been commercially released in China or approved by the state. Composed of 23 takes (akin to Liu’s age then), the film won the FIPRESCI PRIZE (International Film Critics’ Prize) & Caligari Film Prize at the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival. Liu is currently a professor of screen writing at the Beijing Film Academy.

For the full Off the Catalogue: June 2023 programme. Please click here.

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