"A maze built on lies."
An unrecognizable, charred corpse discovered in a remote mountain village in China connects three local stories.
Social & External
The people behind it
Huo Weimin
Xiao Weiguo
Wang Xiaotian
Xiao Zongyao
Luo Yun
Huang Huan
Yang Yuzen
Xiao Zongyao's Mother
Sun Li
Li Qin
Jin Zi
Young teen girl Xiu Xiu is sent away to a remote corner of the Sichuan steppes for manual labor in 1975 (sending young people to there was a part of Cultural Revolution in China). A year later, she agrees to go to even more remote spot with a Tibetan saddle tramp Lao Jin to learn horse herding.
Years after her boyfriend left her for the big city and promised to bring her there after he’s settled down, a Chinese woman sets out on a journey to be reunited with him.
In the Chinese town of Fuyang, four brothers go about their day-to-day lives, their destinies shaped by love and challenges.
Teased by hallucinations, Shu, a slacker living in a rural village, struggles with an ever-loosening grip on reality. Yet when one of his visions manifests as real, his fellow villagers come to regard him as a clairvoyant. Can Shu genuinely see into the future? Is he actually just a basket case? Or is he perhaps more lucid than he seems, and pulling a fast one on everyone?
A polyptych of interconnected stories in different time-zones, shifting between a Yunnan village, a campus, and the Gobi Desert.
When a young rancher crosses paths with a Lakota girl from a nearby reservation, her mysterious disappearance sparks a search that uncovers a harrowing past and hints at a dire future.
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.
Gentle and broken, a homeless man fights others on video for money but soon finds comfort in an unlikely friend and the lost diary of a young girl.
After his release from prison, Lang returns to his hometown near the Gobi Desert, where he forms an unexpected bond with a stray black dog.
A movie fan escapes from a labour camp during the Chinese Cultural Revolution and strikes up a relationship with a homeless female vagabond.
Romulus, a misunderstood musician turned recluse hiding from personal demons in a New York City cave, finds the frozen body of a young drifter in a tree. The authorities, including his police officer daughter, claim the death is accidental. Romulus is convinced the man was murdered by a prominent art photographer but how can he prove he's right when everyone thinks he's insane?
In Chengdu, China, a retired female opera singer named Master Chang takes in a trio of young tenants into her boarding home. The tenants include a rock singer and a college student who has run away from home.
A rescue unit within the Chinese Coast Guard are forced to overcome their personal differences to resolve a crisis.
A moment of impulsiveness turns Gao Zhilei into a "stay-at-home" individual, but he never expected his life to take a turn in the opposite direction. A series of changes compel him to take on his responsibilities as the head of the family. When life's burdens hit hard, he must confront himself and start anew.
When seventeen-year-old Hannah stumbles upon a website about Thinspiration--an online community devoted to anorexia as a life choice--she becomes an obsessive follower of the site founder, ButterflyAna. By the time Hannah's family realizes what is happening and get Hannah the help she needs, the disease has fully taken hold and Hannah is refusing to eat. Will this family be able to exorcise the demon of anorexia from their lives?
While Native American Wolf is being pursued by the FBI for having taken the law into his own hands, when his mother was raped and killed on their reservation he crosses paths with Cash, a down and out musician who is coping with the end of his marriage. An unlikely friendship develops, as they ride together towards the Teton mountain range, where Wolf will spread his mothers ashes.
Mouse desperately wants to join The Midnight Clique, the infamous Baltimore dirt bike riders who rule the summertime streets. When Midnight’s leader, Blax, takes 14-year-old Mouse under his wing, Mouse soon finds himself torn between the straight-and-narrow and a road filled with fast money and violence.
In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.
The arrogant, third most-wanted criminal in Taiwan, decides to get rid of the top two competitors and crowns himself the most-wanted criminal before dying.
Tangshan, 1976. Two seven-year-old twins are buried under the rubble of the deadliest earthquake of the 20th century. The rescue team explains to their mother that freeing either child will almost certainly result in the death of the other. Forced to make the most difficult decision of her life, she finally chooses to save her son. Though left behind as dead, the little girl miraculously survives, unbeknownst to her brother and mother.
