These are fifteen short films you shouldn’t miss at the Odyssey: a Chinese Cinema Season which will take place from May 10 until June 10, 2022 online. The festival will also feature 10 panel discussions and many Q&A sessions.

– Films Selected –

A 18-year-old school girl is invited to attend a mysterious dinner party that is full of greasy middle-aged men. But there is also a different man named Jianguo who will lead a new journey for the girl. What will happen to her? (Odyssey 2022)

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Seowoo goes to the convenience store where she’s been working part-time to claim a late payment. When she arrives, she discovers that the store has taken on a new worker – a strangely clumsy part-timer. (Odyssey 2022)

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It’s still the same compound and family. My parents’ eye-tailed posture is a little more wrinkled, and little Ray, who never leaves his nunchucks, has grown up, still reticent. Life in the grandfather’s small courtyard stretches out calmly, and the daily minutiae flow between the family members. (Odyssey 2022)

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Late at night, sister Yun and brother Yuan escape from their own house. The two trekked to an abandoned school. From there, they enter a mysterious journey and conflict. (Odyssey 2022)

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As a model student in her elementary school, 11-year-old Yuqi is assigned to give a speech about her family at the Parent’s Meeting. But after Yuqi finds out that she shares the same secret with a mischievous classmate, she starts to have second thoughts. (Odyssey 2022)

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In a highly abstract society, fireworks are strictly prohibited, and males are routinely castrated. The protagonist has experienced all kinds of hardships that women in this world have endured: parting, childbirth, deprivation of social rights, grief, and death. The only way to express resistance to this prejudiced and disciplined society is through a desolate kind of struggle. (Odyssey 2022)

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A half-human, half-pig housewife manically shops in a dystopian supermarket until she loses her grip on reality. As the shopping trip goes on, she devolves into a terrifying metaphor for the obsessive consumer: a greedy animal. (Odyssey 2022)

Growing up in the United States, Lisa Lin, a second-generation Chinese American who does not speak any Chinese, thinks her “Chinese” identity is necessary in a cultural melting pot like New York. Only after her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, and after eventually forgetting English, does Lisa realise that she had never tried to understand her mother’s world. Will she rediscover her mother tongue? (Odyssey 2022)

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Paper Airplane is a romantic drama. While falling in love with a reclusive homeless musician, a self-abandoned, drug-addicted Chinese school girl gradually regains her hope for life and makes peace with herself. (Odyssey 2022)

An individual who is suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder and forced to migrate to outer space. There, he misses his mother and homeland. Time after time, the only response to his calling his mother is an endless busy tone. (Odyssey 2022)

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When an excavator attempts to destroy a temple, a monk’s ancient faith is finally confronted by modern society: it is from then that he must begin his interrogation of the world. (Odyssey 2022)

He Huang’s parents quarreled frequently. Guo Yu grew up in a family with a similar situation. After knowing Yu, Huang sympathised with Yu and decided to give Yu a special gift. After Huang spends a long time knitting a kneelet and putting it into Yu’s locker, Yu’s reaction to the kneelet is not so satisfying… (Odyssey 2022)

On a winter’s day in southern China, after the funeral of her father, her daughter finds her deceased relatives back at home. It is getting late and the reunion and the parting are somehow merging to become the same occasion.

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Congyang is a 20-year-old whose congenital cataracts have rendered her as semi-blind. Committed to her blind boyfriend, Congyang struggles with her need for independence and her parents’ disapproval of the relationship. As she becomes torn between staying in her hometown and starting a new life in a bigger city, Congyang must negotiate the wishes of her parents, new revelations about her boyfriend, and her own personal journey towards self-expression. Will she choose to gamble on love, or will she start a new life – free? (Odyssey 2022)

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During World War II, I had no home, no family. Some people offer to buy me as their substitute for military service of KMT. On the battlefield, I hid in the bunkers most of the daytime and shot into the sky from time to time. I spent every second hiding myself to stay alive. At night, I seized every chance to run away. There were several times I actually made it. I continuously re-replaced others as a soldier every time I got back. Hence, I have been a soldier already for six times. I have never shot anyone, nor gotten shot. Until the end of the war, not even one gunshot wound could be found on me physically. This is a story from my grandfather.

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For more information, please visit: https://www.odysseychinesecinema.uk/