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Introduction

China, France, Denmark, Qatar / 2024 / 99 min
Director：LIN Jianjie

While doing pullups on the high school field, Shuo gets hit by a basketball thrown by his schoolmate Wei, slips off the bar, and injures his foot. Feeling guilty, Wei invites Shuo to his house to play video games. During dinner with Wei’s parents, Shuo reveals that he lost his mother and hints at the abuse he suffered from his alcoholic father. This was Shuo's first clever step to gain their sympathy. Gradually, Shuo spends more time at Wei's luxurious apartment, steadily winning the parents’ trust… With his masterful narrative precision, Lin Jianjie examines the shifting dynamics within a middle-class family infiltrated by a discreet intruder. Like a perfect piece of sculpture, every element of each frame is kept under tight control, while maintaining a clever and puzzling ambiguity, and his ability to sustain the tension of a thriller is nothing short of masterful. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was subsequently screened at the Berlin International Film Festival.

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