TOKYO FILMeX Competition films

China / 2018 / 234 min.
Director: HU Bo

Screened at the Berlin International Film Festival's Forum Section where it won the FIPRESCI Jury Prize, this near 4-hour opus astonished the world with its depiction of the single day in the lives of the four main characters who reside in a provincial town of northern China. Bu is a schoolboy who pushed a classmate down the stairs for ridiculing him. Ling agonizes over her romantic relationship with her married teacher. Cheng is guilt ridden over witnessing a friend's suicide. Finally, Wan is dismayed at his own son. Each burdened by their own problems, the four long to escape somewhere and find something to seek out to in the northern inner Mongolian city of Manzhouli. There, an elephant sits as if oblivious to everything.... After the completion of filming his debut feature-length film, director HU Bo took his own life.