Alula Film Festival VIRTUAL CINEMA

Your streaming of the film supports our partner Alula Film Festival (aka DC Chinese Film Festival) during the pandemic of covid-19

Learn more about the organization: facebook.com/alulaff/

Limited to audience in Washington DC only

EVER SINCE WE LOVE

万物生长

Director/Writer: LI Yu Cast: HAN Geng, FAN Bingbing, QI Xi

To Qiu Shui, a young lad in his most hungry, curious, and restless 20s, the whole world feels a little erotic. Studying at China's top medical college, he can break down men's carnal impulses with solid human anatomy knowledge but can't grasp the inner desire that draws him to three disparate romantic interests-the fairy-like hometown first love, the marriageable college girlfriend, and the sensuous working woman. It's the 1990s when China just opened up to exciting opportunities and risks. Unprecedented social fluidity provokes individuals' materialist and romantic appetites. This cruel new world eventually crushes Qiu Shui’s burning passion and takes each of his lovers away. As he looks back at his chaotic youth as a grownup years later, he's rewarded with a deeper understanding of what it means to live and love. Adapting the best-selling novel "Everything Grows", China’s prominent woman director Li Yu reunites with idol Fan Bingbing to bring female gaze to a male protagonist’s story for the first time.

My Prince Edward

金都

Director & Writer: WONG, (Yee-Lam) Norris Cast: TANG, Stephy; CHU, Pak Hong; PAW, Hee-Ching; JIN, Kaijie

Serving countless newlyweds in Hong Kong’s go-to one-stop-shop of cheap wedding supplies doesn’t exempt Fong from social pressure to marry. Since nodding to Edward’s proposal, she has been pushed beyond limits by unaffordable housing, archaic customs, and intrusive in-laws. What befuddles her further is the reappearance of Shuwei, a mainlander she’s supposed to be divorced from out of a sham marriage that solved her coming-of-age hardship. Zeroing in on nuts and bolts of modern marriage, My Prince Edward pokes around fixated correlations of freedom with relationship status and geographic residence. Like a breath of fresh air out of the breathless space it navigates, the whimsical gem contributes a rare humane take on the worldly metropolis's divisions with humor and wisdom. As Fong redefines her best life and writer-director Norris Wong reclaims her home city's narrative from outsiders in this debut, their courage sparks thrills and will make you wholeheartedly cheer for a woman’s independence and a new age in Hong Kong cinema.

The Great Buddha +

大佛普拉斯

Taiwan’s Entry for Best Foreign-Language Film at the 91st OSCARS®

Director & Writer: HUANG, Hsin-Yao Cast: CHUANG, Cres / CHEN, Bamboo/ DAI, Leon

Underlining the gap between have-nots' lives and elites' world by switching between black and white and glamorous colors, THE GREAT BUDDHA+ vividly illustrates a corrupted village in rural southern Taiwan with memorable style, heartfelt empathy, and whimsical humor.  Security guard Pickle and his trash collector friend Belly Button kill time together in night shifts watching the American-educated boss's dash-cam recordings of his various sexual encounters with women. Against the buddies’ will, something horrifying rather than erotic reveals.