Zhang Yinglong, who had been working alone in Beijing, returned to his hometown to visit relatives and learned that due to logging and coal mining, the environment in his hometown had deteriorated from once being a place of abundant water and grass to now being covered in yellow sand. Despite the opposition of his relatives, he resigned from his job as a deputy general manager and sold his house to return to his hometown to fight the desert. After experiencing difficulties and perseverance, he has now become a "national model worker" with green trees lining the streets.
Wu Shiju, a father searching for his daughter, and Lao Liang, an aging cop searching for himself, engage in an endless journey between two counties on the southwestern border of China amid rumors of an impending apocalypse.
Late at night, KONG Xianyun and her younger brother Yuanyuan escape from their family house. They trek into an abandoned school, where Yuanyuan’s memories are awakened – the sound of books, piano, and laughter. Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire engulfs everything. Adapted from The Song of Life by the worldrenowned sci-fi writer WANG Jinkang, this speculative short contemplates on the future of AI. Soaked in a never-shredding atmosphere and accompanied by the secret tune of a piano, DOUBLE HELIX tells a gripping story of intelligence robot, family trauma and a pair of run-away siblings who trek into an abandoned school.
A short film omnibus featuring the work of five directors representing five countries involved in the 2017 BRICS summit, an annual international relations conference held between Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The collection—taking the concept of time as a unifying theme—depicts the economic, political, and social alienations and contradictions that create, compound, and structure issues as wide-ranging as poverty, class stratification, and homeless; familial distress; spousal abuse; and natural disaster.
Revive is one of five short films within the Jia Zhangke-produced omnibus film Where Has Time Gone? with contributions from each of the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). In Jia’s segment, a Chinese couple in the ancient town of Pingyao attempts to breathe new life into their old love as they ponder having a second child. Pingyao, home to the film festival Jia has co-founded, is a highly picturesque UNESCO World Heritage Site, and Jia humorously plays with a very recent dilemma – the second child policy dates from only 2013 – in a setting itself forcibly revived from history.
The life of Tao, and those close to her, is explored in three different time periods: 1999, 2014, and 2025.
Jia Zhangke's short film for Greenpeace East Asia depicts the effects of air pollution in northeast China, a region frequently blanketed in dangerous levels of air pollution. 'Smog Journeys' traces two families from two different backgrounds; one a mining family in Hebei province, and the other a trendy middle class family in Beijing. Both face a similar fate. Air pollution is one of China's most pressing environmental and health issues. Greenpeace calls for a shift from coal to clean renewable energy, as well as short term measures that better safeguard people's health.
Throughout ten years of a key era in Chinese and Hong Kong history, a girl becomes fixated on a fellow commuter who she observes regularly. While the two never speak to one another, the girl captures her appearance and life changes during the years through various means such as photos and drawings.
A town in Fengjie county is gradually being demolished and flooded to make way for the Three Gorges Dam. A man and woman visit the town to locate their estranged spouses, and become witness to the societal changes.