(Selection) Three filmmakers on the forefront of China’s women-led cinema growth – Shao Yihui, Yang Lina and Yin Lichuan – have new titles on the slate of gross sales agent Parallax Movies, which shopped them to patrons on the Asian Contents & Movie Market (ACFM) in Busan. Within the quick “Successful at Sleep,” Shao turns her satirical eye on meritocracy and the tradition of fixed competitors. The story facilities on an on a regular basis lady who’s handed an unlikely probability at glory by way of an uncommon contest.
“It’s OK” reteams Yang with Golden Horse winner Wen Qi (“Angels Put on White,” “The Daring, the Corrupt and the Stunning”). Wen performs a younger trainer coping with an pressing well being disaster, all whereas managing the unstated connection she shares along with her conventional mom. The dramedy takes on questions of womanhood and a lady’s management over her personal physique.
Veteran director Yin’s “A Joke” is billed as the primary Chinese language characteristic to deal with sexual harassment within the office. It follows a sanitation employee who spends three years quietly accumulating proof in opposition to her abusive boss, then joins forces with a younger lawyer to show him.
The pickups journey a wave that started in 2021 with Shao’s breakout “B for Busy,” which opened the door for female-centered tales in China. Three years later, Yin’s “Like a Rolling Stone” and Shao’s second characteristic “Her Story” grossed greater than RMB845 million ($118 million) mixed on the home field workplace.
“Her Story” went on to win finest image, finest actress and finest supporting actress on the thirty eighth Golden Rooster Awards, mainland China’s government-backed movie honors. Movies by ladies administrators have traditionally received few alternatives on the awards, making the haul a landmark for feminist filmmaking within the nation.
On the pageant circuit, Luka Yuanyuan Yang’s documentary hybrid “Chinatown Cha-Cha” discovered related success. Parallax credit a younger feminine viewers with rising clout for proving that movies about gender roles, relationships and social strain can pull in huge numbers. Traders, studios and producers have since backed a broader vary of women-led tasks.
A era of feminine administrators now works throughout each business and indie filmmaking, chasing field workplace and pageant status directly. Alongside Shao and Yin, the group contains Yang (“Spring Tide,” “Music of Spring”), Teng Congcong (“Ship Me to the Clouds,” sequence “To the Surprise”) and Vivian Qu (“Angels Put on White,” “Ladies on Wire”).
Parallax’s quick movie lineup additionally options “Our Secrets and techniques,” which took the Lights On Ladies’s Price Award at Cannes’ La Cinef. “Scorching,” “Thirteenth Night time” and “Fishtank” flip to fantasy to chart their characters’ inside lives. “Orlo With Karma” is a Tibetan coming-of-age romance from Kangdrun, director of “Linka Linka.”
“Linka Linka,” which received the Firebird and Fipresci prizes on the Hong Kong Worldwide Movie Competition, explores city Tibetan youth tradition in the present day, whereas “100 Sundown” appears on the Tibetan diaspora in Canada. Anuparna Roy’s “Lovers within the Blue Night time” received the Netpac Award at Venice. Documentary and hybrid titles about identification and household embody “Masayume,” Visions du Réel winner “From Daybreak to Daybreak” and docufiction “Shanghai Daughter.” “Now I Met Her” and “Embers” sit on the business finish of the slate.
Supply: Selection by Naman Ramachandran October 11, 2026 6:21pm PT
