China

Did you know that one of the earliest known versions of the Cinderella fairy tale was Chinese? Cinderella Moon blends Chinese cosmology and magical realism in a spectacular adaptation filmed in the Yunnan Province of China on the Tibetan plateau. In a majestic Kingdom, events on earth reflect the balance of the sun and the moon. When orphaned girl Mei Mei is mistreated by her stepmother and stepsisters, the moon refuses to move in the sky. Aided by the bones of a magical fish and her mother’s bejeweled slippers, Mei Mei attends the Full Moon Dance.

Left with few options, Juma and Latso leave Beijing for home, a remote village in the foothills of the Himalayas. But home is no longer what it was, as growing exposure to the modern world changes the provocative traditions the Mosuo have built around their belief that marriage is an attack on the family. Determined to keep their mother and siblings out of poverty, Latso sacrifices her dream of an education and stays home to farm, while Juma leaves to try her luck in the city.

In the farming plains of Tibet, a sheepherder sells the family dog, a Tibetan mastiff, which angers his father who demands he finds the dog and bring it back home. In such poor conditions, dogs like the Tibetan mastiff are worth a fortune, but, for this family, the dog is worth much more than any money can buy. Old Dog captures the evolving Tibetan society through this tale of a family caught between old traditions and economic realities.

A young man left behind by Beijing’s fabulous new wealth has lost his job, his apartment and the woman he loves. Even Happiness, his dog, has left him. Lovelorn, self-destructive and desperately aimless, the man nevertheless has moments of euphoria amid his own despair, as he roams the sleek, shifting city with other soulful, cash-poor dreamers and misfits.