Zhao Liang’s film portrays AIDS sufferers of both genders; they are all people with very different biographies. As if it wasn’t bad enough being infected by HIV, their suffering is compounded by the fact that in the People’s Republic of China the disease is hushed up and people living with...
In a quiet forest, a sign warns of radiation hazard. “Is this the past or the future?” muses the masked figure who appears like a kind of ghost in nuclear disaster areas. At a time when nuclear power may be re-emerging as an alternative to fossil fuels, this calmly observed and compelling tour...
The dysfunctional Chinese justice system allows citizens with grievances against their local governments to petition the court to clear or correct their record. Yet in order to do so, the petitioners must travel to Beijing to file paperwork and wait an indefinite period to plead their case....
Under the sun, the heavenly beauty of grasslands will soon be covered by the raging dust of mines. Facing the ashes and noises caused by heavy mining , the herdsmen have no choice but to leave as the meadow areas dwindle. In the moonlight, iron mines are brightly lit throughout the night. Workers...
With the fishermen's life on the southeastern coast in the early 1960s as its background, the film depicts a group of militia women who work both as fisher women and fighters defending their homes and the motherland.
Using the format of music videos, Zhao films an actor running through the remnants of a traditional Beijing neighborhood that is in the process of being destroyed as a result of urban economic redevelopment.
An Atonal commissioned video work from acclaimed Chinese filmmaker Zhao Liang was shot on-site in Chernobyl, northern Ukraine. The work focuses on Maria - in her 50s when the nuclear disaster occurred in Chernobyl. As her village was within 30 kilometres of the restricted area, she and her...
SYNOPSIS Towards the end of 1989, several artists moved to an area near the ruins of Yuanmingyuan, the former Beijing Summer Palace. Farewell, Yuanmingyuan documents the trials and tribulations of the artists in their nubile makeshift community.
Paper Airplane is a feature-length documentary that looks at the breakdown of China’s socialist systems, which had previously provided jobs and security, now having turned to capitalism allows disenfranchised youths to fall into new lifestyles that sometimes involve the underworld of drugs.
In a small town near China's North Korea border, a state police station exerts itself as a solicitous caretaker of the locals. As it goes out to catch criminals and punish them too, professionalism fades into the background.
Return to the Border is a documentary directed by Zhao Liang about his return to his hometown in China that borders the Yalu river and North Korea. The film presents deep insight into both the Chinese and North Korean societies and changes that have taken place over the last several decades.
