Directed by Qiu Sheng
China | 2018 | Fiction | 113 min | Mandarin w/ English subtitles
Film Source: Cinema Guild
Sponsors: Arnie Malina | Duncan Wisniewski Architecture
Chosen for the New Directors/New Films showcase at Lincoln Center in New York City, and a hit at the prestigious Locarno Film Festival, this lauded debut by Chinese director Qui Sheng teases the audience with two intertwining plotlines that have inexplicable temporal twists and turns as the plot lines echo and overlap. An engineer tries to figure out why craters have opened up on the edge of the city; a preteen spends long afternoons with his playmates in a lyrical portrait of youth and memory. But one by one his friends disappear. Poetic and enigmatic, suspenseful and often beautiful to watch, Suburban Birds is as much about love and dreams as corruption and bureaucracy. Discover a totally surprising film from a talented new director. ~AM