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Ash Is Purest White
Shanxi Province The 2000s The 2010sSet in China's underworld, this tale of love and betrayal follows a dancer who fired a gun to protect her mobster boyfriend during a fight. On release from prison 5 years later, she sets out to find him.
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Someone to Talk To
Shanxi Province The 2010sAn adaptation of Liu Zhenyun’s award-winning novel One Sentence Worth Ten Thousand, produced by Bill Kong. The novel, which won the Mao Dun Literature Prize after it was published in 2008, revolves around a divorced woman and her married younger brother and deals with loneliness and alienation in contemporary Chinese society. The film marks the feature debut of award-winning short filmmaker Liu Yulin, who is adapting her father’s work. A New York University film graduate, Liu’s short film Door God (2014) won a silver medal at the 41st Student Academy Awards and was selected by Cannes.
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Avalokitesvara
Shanxi Province The 9th CenturyIn the time of the Tang Dynasty, Yu Xiufeng, a porcelain maker from Mount Meicen, makes a ceramic statue of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara to consecrate at Mount Wutai to protect the princeling Li Yi.
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Sacrifice
Shanxi ProvinceFor generations the Zhao family has wielded power, until their mortal enemy TU’AN GU slaughters the entire clan, determined to wipe out their influence forever. But one Zhao baby survives hidden by CHENG YING the doctor who delivered him. When Tu’an Gu learns of the baby’s escape he seizes every infant in the city, vowing to kill them all unless the Zhao baby is surrendered. As the tyrant’s soldiers arrive at Cheng Ying’s home the frantic doctor hides his wife with their own baby whilst surrendering the Zhao child as his own. But his family is discovered; his baby is presumed to be the Zhao heir and murdered along with his wife for harboring the infant. Now set on revenge Cheng Ying enrolls the Zhao orphan into the service of the Tu’an Gu household, plotting to use him as an instrument of vengeance when he comes of age.
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Warm Spring
Shanxi ProvinceFamily roles and responsibilities are questioned when an elderly father welcomes a foster child into his home despite the adamant disapproval of his son and daughter-in-law.
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Incense
Shanxi ProvinceIn "Incense", director Ning Hao makes a comment on the state of traditional Buddhism in modern China. He portrays a disspirited, empty setting in which old Buddhist values are replaced by modern values of materialism and capitalism.
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Unknown Pleasures
Shanxi Province The 2000sThree disaffected youths live in Datong in 2001, part of the new "Birth Control" generation. Fed on a steady diet of popular culture, both Western and Chinese, the characters of Unknown Pleasures represent a new breed in the People's Republic of China, one detached from reality through the screen of media and the internet.
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Platform
Shanxi Province The 1980s The 1970sThe movie is set in the remote Chinese province of Fenyang, and spans the turbulent 1980s by following four performers in the state-run Peasant Culture Group. We see the group evolve from workers that are restricted to approved revolutionary classics that praise Chairman Mao, through performance of Western classics, after China adopts an 'open door' policy, and the effects on their lives.
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In Public
Shanxi Provincedocumentary — A fragmentary landscape for a little train station in a suburban area and a bus stop in a mining town. A lonely soldier in his heavy coat, a tired old man, a bubbly young lady, a punk, a woman waiting in the street... From all those different people in these unfamiliar places, we can feel the exhaustion of every life.
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Pickpocket
Shanxi Province The 1990sA small town pickpocket whose friends have moved on to higher trades finds himself bitter and unable to adapt.
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The Heroic Ones
Shanxi Province The 9th CenturyA Mogul king decides to take stealthy action to help overpower his greatest rivals. He chooses nine out thirteen of his loyal generals (who he treats as sons) to embark on the mission. However, jealously amongst them sparks a treacherous family feud that could lead to catastrophic consequences for all involved.
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The Grand Substitution
Shanxi ProvinceWith China under control of a weak Emperor, two officials compete to steer the future destiny of the land. Chiu believes the people are the future of China, while the diabolical Tu wishes to grind the people beneath an iron heel. Tu decides to take out Chiu's family, but one lone infant escapes.
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The Inn of the Sixth Happiness
Shanxi Province The 1930s The 1940sAll her life Englishwoman Gladys Aylward knew that China was the place where she belonged. Not qualified to be sent there as a missionary, Gladys works as a domestic to earn the money to send herself to a poor, remote village. There she eventually lives a full and happy life: running the inn, acting as "foot inspector", advising the local Mandarin and even winning the heart of mixed race Captain Lin Nan. But Gladys discovers her real destiny when the country is invaded by Japan and the Chinese children need her to save their lives. Based on a true story.
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