Asian Studies

An official selection of the Cannes Film Festival, The Day After begins as a darkly hilarious story of a man embroiled in extramarital entanglements but soon shifts—in a way only Hong can manage—into a heartfelt portrayal of a young woman on a quest for spiritual fulfillment.

 A refreshingly sunny performance from Isabelle Huppert (The Piano Teacher, Elle) is at the center of this comic charmer from South Korean Master Hong Sangsoo. Intricately plotted with wit and charm to spare, CLAIRE'S CAMERA explores the power of images to transform us. 

THE WOMAN WHO RAN is a subtle, powerful look at dramas small and large faced by women everywhere. With characteristic humor and grace, Hong takes a simple premise and spins a web of interconnecting philosophies and coincidences. Winner of the  Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin Film Festival.

Winner for Best Screenplay at Berlin Film Festival.  For his twenty-fifth feature as director and his first as cinematographer, Hong Sangsoo offers a simple tale of young people on the edge of adulthood. Introduction cuts to the essence of who we are as people, like an unexpected hug on a winter's day.

When painter Youngsoo (Kim Joohyuk) learns that his girlfriend, Minjung (Lee Yooyoung), was recently seen having drinks with another man, he can’t help but question her about it. It doesn’t go well and they part on bad terms. The next day, Youngsoo tries to find her, but can’t. As he wanders and frets, Minjung has a series of encounters with other men. But to them it seems she’s not herself.

An aging poet, Younghwan, summons his two estranged sons to a solitary hotel beside the Han River because he feels his death is near. While waiting for them to arrive, he meets two women out walking in the new-fallen snow and is struck by their angelic beauty.

Hao (Mason Lee) is part of a team of young engineers called in to investigate a series of craters that have opened up on the edge of the city. As he and his team survey the subsiding area, another story is taking place in the same suburban landscape. A younger boy, also named Hao, spends long afternoons playing with friends and making mischief until one-by-one, his playmates start to disappear. As these parallel stories unfold, the connections between them proliferate and grow stranger. 

From acclaimed director Wang Xiaoshuai (Beijing Bicycle; So Long, My Son) comes a personal snapshot of contemporary China in all its diversity. Shot over the course of ten years on both film and video, the film consists of a series of carefully composed tableaus of people and environments, each one more extraordinary than the last. 

I’ve Got a Little Problem chronicles internationally renowned photographer and poet Ren Hang’s struggle with Chinese censorship, painful public scrutiny, and manic depression, that eventually sent his life spiraling out of control.

From master director Hong Sangsoo comes his most personal film to date, On The Beach at Night Alone.  Starring Kim Minhee (The Handmaiden, Claire's Camera)—in the role that won her the Silver Bear for best actress in Berlin.

Filmed for six years, With this Ring follows India’s famed female boxing team and provides an inside look at the challenges they face – gender discrimination, pressure to conform to traditional gender roles, and lack of recognition by the public despite dominating the international boxing scene

A charismatic activist leads a globally-regarded NGO that provides shelter and education for girls rescued from brothels in Northern Thailand. But as the filmmakers meet the girls and their families, discrepancies begin to emerge and the story they're telling takes an unexpected turn.

A haunting masterpiece and possibly the last film from the great Tsai Ming-liang, Stray Dogs is a visually powerful work about a single father and his two young children trying to survive on the streets of Taipei. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival.

Mixing personal stories, political history, revolutionary propaganda and film theory, artist Eric Baudelaire illuminates the idealism and radicalism of left-wing extremist movements of the 1970s by interweaving the stories of two of its protagonists: May Shigenobu, daughter of the founder of the Japanese Red Army, and Masao Adachi, the revered Japanese director who gave up cinema to take up arms.

Following the acclaimed Kale and Kale and Monsoon- Reflections, As Long as There's Breath is Stephanie Spray's third film documenting the lives of the Gayeks family in Nepal. Building on a deep bond of trust (Spray was eventually adopted by the family), she captures a multi-generational household struggling for cohesion after the departure of a beloved son.

A revealing one-shot portrait of two Nepali newlyweds in a moment of rest and playful interaction, Untitled challenges our perception of two themes at the very core of ethnographic filmmaking: human relationships and the ways in which they can be experienced by the viewer.