Brief History of a Family

Sundance 2024
Official Selection
Berlinale 2024
Panorama

Brief History of a Family

A Film by Jianjie Lin

2024 - China/France/Denmark/Qatar - Thriller - 99 min.

with Feng Zu , Keyu Gun & Xilun Sun

Language: Mandarin

A middle-class family’s fate becomes intertwined with their only son’s enigmatic new friend in post one-child policy China, putting unspoken secrets, unmet expectations, and untended emotions under the microscope.

In Collection:
Sundance 2024
Official Selection
Berlinale 2024
Panorama

More Films

Juze

A film by Miransha Naik

2017 - France/India/Netherlands/United Kingdom - Drama - 2.39 - 93 min.

Santosh, a 16 year old boy, is determined to continue with school despite regular beatings from Juze, the ‘Slum Landlord’. As events build to breaking point, Santosh’s passive resistance evolves into the realisation that he must confront Juze and finally achieve freedom from fear.

Dancing Dreams

A film by Anne Linsel

2009 - Germany - Documentary - 1.85 DCP - 89 min.

The dance performance „Kontakthof“ bears the unmistakable signature of Pina Bausch: it deals with forms of human contact, the encounters between the sexes, and the search for love and tenderness with all the attendant anxieties, yearnings and doubts. It is about feelings, which pose a big challenge, particularly for young people. For almost a year teenagers from over eleven schools in Wuppertal went on an emotional journey. Every Saturday, 40 students, aged between 14 to 18 years, rehearsed under the direction of the Bausch-dancers Jo-Ann Endicott and Bénédicte Billiet and under the intense supervision of Pina Bausch herself. The film „Dancing Dreams“ by Anne Linsel and Rainer Hoffmann accompanies the rehearsal process culminating in the opening night. We watch the teenagers making their first, still clumsy attempts to transform the subjects of the dance performance into motion and choreography and to develop an own, individual body expression. They discover themselves in a process, which leads great personal growth. Gentle and shy but also aggressive contacts condensate to individual experiences that many of the teenagers encounter for the first time on stage. Pina Bausch has always encouraged the young dancers „to be themselves.“ It is behind their own movements, fears, feelings and desires that their personal „Dancing Dreams“ become visible. At the end each of them has not only grown up, but above all has become more self-confident, independent and more sceptical facing prejudices. Employing an unusual adjacency, the film introduces the young protagonists in sensitive ways, it culminates in drawing a portrait of an entire generation. Pina Bausch died on June 30th, 2009. „Dancing Dreams – teenagers perform „Kontakthof“ by Pina Bausch“ shows the last motion pictures and the last interview with the world-famous dancer and choreographer.

Mario

A film by Marcel Gisler

2018 - Switzerland - Drama - 1.85 - 119 min.

There’s a ripple of disquiet in the locker-room when Leon, a new striker, joins the football team. Sharing a flat with keen rival Mario sets the scene for an unexpected love affair, but the path of gay love in this macho world is not an easy one. Mario is unwilling or unable to acknowledge the implications of what is happening. But pretend girlfriends don’t fool everyone. And gossip, along with the threat of blackmail, unbalances the team’s morale. With the prospect of a professional career a strong possibility, will Mario forsake the hope of emotional satisfaction for professional gain?