Six filmmakers present six short films about the experiences of Chinese immigrants. Shot across Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Myanmar, the anthology depicts the crisis of identity that accompanies international migration.
Social & External
The people behind it
Lee Kang-sheng
Xiao Kang (segment "Walking on Water")
Huang Lu
Mumu (segment "Now Now Now")
Serene Chen
Serene (segment "Singapore Panda")
Elena Chia
Ning Jie (segment "Singapore Panda")
Alvin Chiam
Hua (segment "Singapore Panda")
Jackie is a CCTV operator. One day, a man shows his face on her monitor, a man she hoped never to see again. Now she has no choice and is compelled to confront him.
Teenage best friends Mila, Hanna and Kati play matchmaker to their teachers while helping each other through their own budding romances.
A girl gives a eulogy for her father's funeral.
On the brink of her 30th birthday, Fanny feels the door to marital happiness closing on her. She is obsessed with death and even visits evening classes on dying, so it seems fitting that she encounters a skeleton in the malfunctioning elevator of her apartment building. The skeleton is her neighbour Orfeo, a Black, gay, self-declared psychic, who convinces her that she is about to meet "him". But is it really Lothar, the new yuppie apartment manager ...?
A young mother from Arkansas is forced to travel across state lines in search of an urgent and necessary abortion.
A lesbian with commitment issues befriends a widowed mother who is visiting her workaholic daughter.
A damsel in distress agrees to run away with her wealthy lover in order to escape from her abusive husband. But all is not as it seems in this 1940s film noir.
On a remote island off the coast of Maine, Liv, after years of silence, begins to weave a language out of Shakespeare's words. A driven neurologist, brought to the island to protect her, commits her to a psychiatric hospital. She becomes a full-blow rebel in the hospital; her increasing violence threatens to keep her locked up for life as she fights for her voice and her freedom.
Aurelio Saravia is a powerful politician who holds office in Uruguay in the mid-1960's. When Aurelio's mistress kills herself, he adopts their illegitimate daughter Masangeles despite the stern objections of his wife Aurora. Masangeles finds herself growing up in a home ruled by a corrupt and self-centered tyrant and his manic colleagues while Uruguay teeters on the brink of civil war as bands of revolutionaries battle government militias. When she turns fourteen, Masangeles discovers a secret passageway in their home that leads to sanctuary in a nearby church which also serves as a storehouse for guns and ill-gotten cash. Teenage Masangeles falls in love with Santiago, her stepbrother who has joined the rebels fighting against the state, and she persuades him to take her virginity.
Vadim, a part-time dump truck driver in Leningrad, picks up an extremely young woman, along with a newborn baby. Vadim is forced to spend the rest of his day with Anna, helping her untangle herself from unpleasant, dramatic, and even tragic situations – and she and she alone is to blame for all of them. The baby, which Anna stole in order to make an impression on an estranged lover, is finally returned to its parents, but the problems that the theft caused remain.
In Georgia during WWII Zurikela, an orphan boy, meets Khatia, a blind girl, and vows to help her to see again.
Zura, a son of a rich businessman, steals a car of his father’s friend to amuse his classmates. When informed about it, the school principal discards him from the bike tournament. Nevertheless, Zura’s father manages to persuade her to allow his son to participate and even succeeds in bribing his championship. Zura’s classmates know that he became a champion undeservedly but can’t do anything about it. Only Khatuna, his alleged girlfriend, and Lexo, Zura’s friend, dare to protest against it. Their lack of loyalty enrages Zura and in the rush of the blood he crashes his father’s car. The accident takes Laxo’s life. Zura’s father does his best to save his son from deserved punishment but the first one against his decision is Zura himself.
Sophiko, a well-known journalist, seems to be more close to many of her respondents when they need her advice than to her family members. All engrossed in her work, she suddenly finds out that she is losing her husband who has started a love affair with another woman. Of course, it strikes her badly but life never lets her to concentrate on her personal problems.
Four alternating stories about mundane, personal methods of control. Children and a developmentally disabled adult operate control panels made out of paper, lists, monsters and their own bodies.
Anna, the daughter of an elderly owner of Kõrboja farm, is told by her father that if she won't move in their home farm then it will be sold to strangers. But the farm needs also a master, and Anna has been living in town for years. She comes back home and reunites with Villu, her friend from childhood.
During the German occupation of Estonia a young mother finds a Red Army soldier hiding in the hay in her barn.
In this tale of second chances, two ex-lovers run into each other in a restaurant. Both are with new partners. Both are unhappy. Both are still in love with the other. Dormant feelings rush to the surface and the opportunity to rekindle the past presents itself. Will the outcome be different?
Sophie, fourteen years old, rides her bike to a remote area after school to read a book about the holocaust. She collides with Joseph, who is the same age, on her bike, and their paths become intertwined. A pile of paving stones next to a bunker triggers an idea: they want to dedicate a stone to each person murdered by the Nazis.
Nadia is an apathetic 16-year-old girl with no friends of sorts, in or outside school. One day, she takes a walk with local no-good Brando, and the boy rapes her. From that moment on, Nadia's life changes forever.
Two first-year students at Oxford University join a secret society and learn that their reputations can be made or destroyed over the course of one evening.
A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.
In Chengdu, China, a retired female opera singer named Master Chang takes in a trio of young tenants into her boarding home. The tenants include a rock singer and a college student who has run away from home.
When seventeen-year-old Hannah stumbles upon a website about Thinspiration--an online community devoted to anorexia as a life choice--she becomes an obsessive follower of the site founder, ButterflyAna. By the time Hannah's family realizes what is happening and get Hannah the help she needs, the disease has fully taken hold and Hannah is refusing to eat. Will this family be able to exorcise the demon of anorexia from their lives?
Feeling awkward and isolated, an imaginative and strong-willed teenage girl runs away from home with an older punk rock drifter.
A woman embarks on a journey alone across the United States after fleeing from her violent husband.
A Midwestern husband and father announces his plan to have a sex change operation.
Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.
The story of a young writer's transformation when her past invades her present.
94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.
A group of Chinese refugees and straggler soldiers, led by a machinist, defend their mountain town, "Gezhi," against a surprise attack by Japanese reconnaissance troops in a desperate fight using civilian ingenuity against a trained military force.
On the outside, Helen has it all – a loving family and a successful career – but when her suppressed mental illness resurfaces, the world crumbles around her. Crippled by depression, Helen finds solace through her friendship with Mathilda, a kindred spirit struggling with bipolar disorder.
Anthology of short films directed by several different directors.
A former professional dancer volunteers to teach dance in the New York public school system and, while his background first clashes with his students' tastes, together they create a completely new style of dance. Based on the story of ballroom dancer, Pierre Dulane.
A young man with a bright future suffers a near-fatal accident and recreates his new life with the help of an unlikely animal friend.
In New York City, a young girl is caught in the middle of her parents' bitter custody battle.
Diagnosed with a black hole growing inside her chest and stuck in a loop reliving the last five days of her life, a 55-year-old wife and mother from Miami, Florida decides to solve time travel in order to go back and be the person she always intended to be.
Inspired by true and harrowing events, an ordinary man finds his world suddenly torn apart as devastating wildfires rip through the surrounding countryside. With precious moments ticking by, he must flee with his son and pregnant wife if they have any hope of surviving the rapid forces of mother nature.
A group of performing art troupe members each face their own trials and tribulations in Chengdu; from escaping a family scandal to dealing with unrequited love, each experiences rejection that shapes their lives.
Alone in her empty flat, from her window Anne observes the people passing by who nervously snatch up the personal belongings and pieces of furniture she has put out on the pavement. Her final gesture of taking a ring off her finger signals she is leaving her previous life in Holland behind. She goes to Ireland, where she chooses to lead a solitary, wandering existence, striding through the austere landscapes of Connemara. During her travels, she discovers a house that is home to a hermit, Martin.
Katy McLaughlin desires to work on her family's mountainside horse ranch, although her father insists she finish boarding school. Katy finds a mustang in the hills near her ranch. The headstrong 16 year old then sets her mind to tame a mustang and prove to her father she can run the ranch. But when tragedy happens, it will take all the love and strength the family can muster to restore hope.