Brings viewers into a small Chinese city and inspires familiarity with the rhythms of everyday existence, with people's dreams, shortcomings and illusions in a way that is universal.
Social & External
Gao Wei Hong
Gao Weiguo
Di Di
Mother
Chinese Teacher Wang
Master Liu
Ke
Jin Zhi
Guo Zi
An intimate study of two women friends who come to each other because of troubles with everyday life and with men and thus try to enjoy a life based on their ideas.
An average, everyday metalworker and volunteer firefighter content in his marriage to his childhood sweetheart finds his emotions unexpectedly stirred when he falls for a pretty waitress from a nearby town.
When 9-year-old orphan Oliver Twist dares to ask his cruel taskmaster, Mr. Bumble, for a second serving of gruel, he's hired out as an apprentice. Escaping that dismal fate, young Oliver falls in with the street urchin known as the Artful Dodger and his criminal mentor, Fagin. When kindly Mr. Brownlow takes Oliver in, Fagin's evil henchman Bill Sikes plots to kidnap the boy.
Parisian everyman Antoine Doinel has married his sweetheart Christine Darbon, and the newlyweds have set up a cozy domestic life of selling flowers and giving violin lessons while Antoine fitfully works on his long-gestating novel. As Christine becomes pregnant with the couple's first child, Antoine finds himself enraptured with a young Japanese beauty. The complications change the course of their relationship forever.
During the Vietnam War, Brian Anderson, a young Army medic, is stationed in Saigon. Initially apathetic and self-serving, he eventually has his heart won over by the children at a nearby orphanage where he does volunteer work. At first, a doctor named Katherine Cross has to persuade him to help the children. But soon, Brian willingly puts his career and safety on the line to provide the orphans with the food and medical supplies they need.
For many years, four teenage orphans at an Australian outback convent have watched their younger comrades find new parents, and realize that they may never be adopted. The Reverend Mother sends the four boys away on a seaside vacation, where they meet Teresa and Fearless, a couple who would make perfect parents. The youths compete with one another to be the one Teresa and Fearless decide to adopt.
A shallow, provincial wife finds her relationship with her preoccupied husband strained by romantic notions, leading her further towards Paris and the country wilderness.
A manager of an orphanage in India is sent to Copenhagen, Denmark, where he discovers a life-altering family secret.
After his entire department is outsourced, an American novelty products salesman heads to India to train his replacement.
Helmut and Sabine Halm have always managed vacations of lazy privacy at their favorite retreat on Germany′s Lake Constance. So when the energetic, handsome Klaus Buch turns up with his beautiful girlfriend Helene, Helmut is quite ready to dismiss this dimly familiar acquaintance. But Klaus is overjoyed to recognize his old schoolmate Helmut, eager to recall every incident of their shared time, and to display every detail of this successful lifestyle as a fit sportsman and author. The precious days of privacy give way to an unwanted and awkward intimacy, as the Buchs and the Halms hike, dine and sail together. Their joint activities aggravate myriad psychological tensions among the four characters, which are all the more intensely ironic for their peaceful veneer and which must eventually erupt.
Melissa is a young girl searching for love. In an overly sexualized world, her attempts are doomed to failure. She tries to imitate adults, but does not understand what she really desires. Thus, she experiences the pleasure and pain of eroticism in her mother's hair salon.
A woman brings her family back to her childhood home, which used to be an orphanage, intent on reopening it. Before long, her son starts to communicate with a new invisible friend.
Harassed by bullies because of his mild autism, teen Ben finds refuge in an online computer game, which leads him to his virtual dream girl, Scarlite. Together, the odd couple seeks revenge against Ben's tormentors.
In a small town in post-WWII France, 16-year-old Janine tries to improve her conditions by any means necessary. Three people—Michel, a married lover; Raoul, a fellow thief; Mauricette, a photographer she meets in prison—will help her learn from her mistakes.
The lives of a motherless young man, who's just starting to find interest in women, and his physically abused, poverty stricken friend, are mixed with more or less innocent childhood experiences and challenges most their age experience.
The little nomad girl, Nansal, finds a baby dog in the Mongolian veld, who becomes her best friend - against all rejections of her parents. A story about a Mongolian family of nomads - their traditional way of life and the rising call of the City.
Spain, 1939. In the last days of the Spanish Civil War, the young Carlos arrives at the Santa Lucía orphanage, where he will make friends and enemies as he follows the quiet footsteps of a mysterious presence eager for revenge.
Homer is an orphan who was never adopted, becoming the favorite of orphanage director Dr. Larch. Dr. Larch imparts his full medical knowledge on Homer, who becomes a skilled, albeit unlicensed, physician. But Homer yearns for a self-chosen life outside the orphanage. What will Homer learn about life and love in the cider house? What of the destiny that Dr. Larch has planned for him?
Story about about a young man who was raised in an orphanage. Kauko goes to Helsinki to work as a store help. The living the big city is not so easy as Kauko expects and not so grand.
Gino, a drifter, begins an affair with inn-owner Giovanna as they plan to get rid of her older husband.
A movie fan escapes from a labour camp during the Chinese Cultural Revolution and strikes up a relationship with a homeless female vagabond.
Ah-Ching and his friends have just finished school in their island fishing village, and now spend most of their time drinking and fighting. Three of them decide to go to the port city of Kaohsiung to look for work. They find an apartment through relatives, and Ah-Ching is attracted to the girlfriend of a neighbor. There they face the harsh realities of the big city.
On the edge of the Gobi desert in Northwest China, Lang returns to his hometown after being released from jail. While working for the local dog patrol team to clear the town of stray dogs before the Olympic Games, he strikes up an unlikely connection with a black dog. These two lonely souls embark on a journey together.
A former boxing champion takes decides to break a few rules and train orphans from China's remote countryside in order to give them a future.
Wang Tiemei, a single mother, loses her job and moves, befriending neighbor Xiaoye who appears cheerful but is depressed. Their bond grows as Tiemei navigates relationships with her ex-husband causing trouble.
Yu Hong leaves her home village and starts university in Beijing, where she develops a consuming and compulsive relationship with another student. The student riots from 1989 then ensue and take a toll on their lives.
As a decades-old state-run aeronautics munitions factory in downtown Chengdu, China is being torn down for the construction of the titular luxury apartment complex, director Jia Zhangke interviews various people affiliated with it about their experiences.
The employees of a massage parlour share a close bond with each other as they all share a trait in common, they are all visually impaired.
A story centered around a divorced couple living in a southern Chinese city Shenzhen and dealing with the disappearance of their missing son.
Hired to spy on a philandering husband, Luo Haitao soon becomes entangled in a clandestine affair with the other man. Along with Luo's girlfriend, they succumb to the delirium of drunken nights, but how long can their tryst last?
Desmond Doyle is devastated when his wife abandons their family on the day after Christmas. His unemployment, and the fact that there is no woman in the house to care for the children—Evelyn, Dermot and Maurice—make it clear to the authorities this is an untenable situation. The Catholic Church and the Irish courts decide to put the Doyle children into Church-run orphanages.
A moment of impulsiveness turns Gao Zhilei into a "stay-at-home" individual, but he never expected his life to take a turn in the opposite direction. A series of changes compel him to take on his responsibilities as the head of the family. When life's burdens hit hard, he must confront himself and start anew.
Caroline, a young waitress who seems to have bad taste in men, is on her way home one night when thugs attempt to rape her. Adam, the mysterious busboy who works at the same diner, helps fight off the assailants, and she begins a relationship with him -- but not all their fellow Minnesotans are happy for them. Meanwhile, the couple face their own difficulties when Caroline finds about Adam's past, including his unique health condition.
Young teen girl Xiu Xiu is sent away to a remote corner of the Sichuan steppes for manual labor in 1975 (sending young people to there was a part of Cultural Revolution in China). A year later, she agrees to go to even more remote spot with a Tibetan saddle tramp Lao Jin to learn horse herding.
After the massacre of his village, Zhang Xiaofan is taken in by the Qing Yun Sect where he begins his journey of cultivation. When he finds out the truth behind the deaths of his parents, he succumbs to his rage and demonic tendencies and becomes the enemy of Qing Yun Sect.
Fired from her job as a reality TV host, Natalie returns home for Valentine's Day, only to find herself running the town festival's auction with her ex-fiancé thanks to two scheming mothers.
An old leper who owned a remote sorghum winery dies. Jiu'er, the wife bought by the leper, and her lover, identified only as "my Grandpa" by the narrator, take over the winery and set up an idealized quasi-matriarchal community headed by Jiu'er. When the Japanese invaders subject the area to their rule and cut down the sorghum to make way for a road, the community rises up and resists as the sorghum grows anew.
Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.
In cold wintry Yanji, a city on China's northern border, young urbanite Haofeng, visiting from Shanghai, feels lost and adrift. By chance, he goes on a tour led by Nana, a charming tour guide who instantly fascinates him. She introduces him to Xiao, a personable but frustrated restaurant worker. The three bond quickly over a drunken weekend. Confronting their individual traumas, their frozen desires slowly thaw as they seek to liberate themselves from an icy world.
Three Chinese friends build a successful English language school to help Chinese teenagers fulfil their dreams.