Fresh from Cannes competition, Jia Zhang-ke’s latest portrait of Chinese society in flux is an epic drawn from over two decades of footage.

In the earliest days of the 21st century, traditionally minded villagers and restless youths are confronted with an inescapable symbol of China’s commitment to progress: the massive Three Gorges Dam project that will submerge 13 entire cities. Bin (longstanding Jia collaborator Li Zhubin) leaves rural Datong to find greater fortune; soon after, his girlfriend Qiaoqiao (Jia’s wife and muse Zhao Tao) follows. Their paths diverge and intersect across China over the years as Qiaoqiao searches for her lost lover and greater meaning. When she returns to her hometown in an era of COVID, social media and talking robots, she finds it – and Bin – unrecognisable.

Mixing documentary and fiction, and revisiting scenes and characters from Unknown Pleasures (MIFF 2002) and Ash Is Purest White (MIFF 2018), MIFF mainstay and Sixth Generation legend Jia remains the master of capturing China’s relentless march towards modernity – and the ‘drifting generation’ lost in its wake. Here, he fashions a free-flowing narrative from over 20 years of video, complete with varied aspect ratios and resolutions. At the centre of it all is Zhao, a magnetic screen presence who digs deeper and deeper into a character that has spanned her husband’s career.

“A masterfully poetic and pioneering fusion of the old and the new … Perhaps the most definitive national portrait that Jia, modern China’s foremost cinematic chronicler, has ever delivered.” – Variety

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