12th Reel China Biennial 2026
12th Reel China Biennial at NYU
October 30 – November 1, 2026
This edition of Reel China once more brings to New York City innovative and bold works by veteran filmmakers from the PRC along with diaspora and emerging Sinophone voices. We open with a fascinating tale of an elderly women dance troupe in San Francisco’s Chinatown and their trans-oceanic performances and encounters. Saturday is anchored by an immersive observation of one of China’s vast factories during the pandemic. We glimpse the impact of global supply chains and coercive business practices on workers’ lives. Join us for young filmmakers from Japan, Canada, and various parts of China who train their sensitive and incisive cameras on transcultural tensions, disappearing lives and spaces, as well as the tenacious struggles and indomitable spirits that continue to shape our tumultuous world.
Co-presented by
The Asian Film & Media Initiative, Martin Scorsese Department of Cinema Studies
The Center for Religion and Media
Co-sponsored by
NYU Center for Media, Culture and History; Department of East Asian Studies; Department of History; and News & Documentary Program at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute
Co-organized by
Professor Zhen Zhang, Cinema Studies, Director of Asian Film Media Initiative, NYU
Professor Angela Zito, Religious Studies and Anthropology
Cristina Cajulis, Events Coordinator, Cinema Studies, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU
Venues:
Friday, October 30 Cantor Film Center, 36 East 8th Street
Saturday, October, 31 Michelson Theater, 6th Floor, 721 Broadway
Sunday, November 1 Michelson Theater, 6th Floor, 721 Broadway
Image credit: Chinatown Cha-cha (Luka Yuanyuan Yang, 2024)
This is an in-person event, open to the public. Prior registration is required for each screening. All registered attendees will receive emailed instructions for building access and may be asked to present a government-issued photo ID upon arrival.
First come, first seated. RSVP does not guarantee seating.
Program
Friday, October 30
Cantor Film Center, Room 200, 36 East 8th Street, 2nd Floor
6:00pm
Chinatown Cha-Cha 女人世界 (Luka Yuanyuan Yang, 2024, 85mins.)
Post-screening discussion with director (+ special appearance of cast members)
8:15pm
Three Castrated Goats (YE Xinyu, 2024, 80min.)
Saturday, October 31
Michelson Theater, 721 Broadway, 6th Floor
10:00am (with Q & A)
The House Without the Poet 詩人不在家 (Vita ZHANG Wei, 2024, 59min.)
The Opposite of Dying 死的對頭 (ZHANG Peiyuan, 2024, 38min.)
Notes of a Crocodile 鱷魚手記 (Daphne Xu Yiyang, 2024, 18 min.)
1:30pm
Coffee
2:00pm
Factory 工廠 (ZHOU Hao, 2024, 2h28min.)
Post-screening discussion with the director
6:30pm
To Be A Woman（Enen Yo, 2024, 36min.）
Come Dance with Me 來來 (LIU Yunyi & WEI Bozhi, 2024, 91min.)
Sunday, November 1
Michelson Theater, 721 Broadway, 6th Floor
10:00am
Line (sickgirl, 2026, 101min.)
Sneak preview (with online Q & A).
1:30pm
Hostile Landscapes 不明的風景 (ZHANG Hanwen, 2025, 60min.)
2:30
Coffee
3:00pm
The Land in Between 中間之地 (ZHOU Yilu, 2025, 15min.)
Inner Light 親愛的佧儷比努爾 (Elyar Tursun (Alex), 2023, 52min.)
4:15pm
Break
5:00pm
To Say, Farewell 道·別 (WANG Libo, 2024, 88min.)
Post-screening discussion with the director
Closing reception
About the films (in order of screening schedule):
Friday, October 30
Cantor Film Center, Room 200, 36 East 8th Street, 2nd Floor
Chinatown Cha-Cha 女人世界 (Luka Yuanyuan Yang, 2024, 85mins.)
At the remarkable age of 92, Coby Yee, a former starlet and owner of the illustrious "Forbidden City Nightclub," reclaimed her place in the spotlight with the senior dance troupe, Grant Avenue Follies. Led by Cynthia Yee, the ensemble brings to life the luminous nightclub era of San Francisco's Chinatown, simultaneously shattering the conventional image of aging Asian women.
Their transnational tour across the US, Cuba, and China unfurls an exploration of diasporic Chinese entertainment and a profound understanding of their own Chinese American identities. In Havana, their co-performance with local Chinese Opera singers sparked a vibrant renaissance in the city's dwindling Chinese community. An emotive journey back to her father's homeland in China gave Coby a chance to reflect on family memories and observe the startling transformation of once familiar urban landscapes.
Luka Yuanyuan Yang is a visual artist and filmmaker working across documentary film, photography, installation, and performance. Weaving documentary and archival materials, she explores themes of identity, migration, and memory, challenging conventional historical narratives and amplifying overlooked voices. Her debut feature documentary, Chinatown Cha-Cha, premiered as an Official Selection at Pingyao International Film Festival and Hawaii International Film Festival in 2024, followed by a nationwide theatrical release in China. Her works are in the collections of Power Station of Art, Kadist Art Foundation and ENIX Museum of Migration. She has received fellowships from the Asian Cultural Council and Asymmetry Art Foundation.
Three Castrated Goats (YE Xinyu, 2024, 80min.)
In late 2022, a man returns to his dust-swept hometown to haul goats for his wife's supervisor. But as a COVID outbreak locks down the city, he is ordered to quarantine at home. Meanwhile, his son embraces his new role as a pandemic-control volunteer. When volunteers arrive to conduct PCR tests, a sneezing goat sets off a chain of increasingly absurd events.
In 2020, YE Xingyu completed short film, “Normal,” which won the Best Screenplay Award at the inaugural Berlin NewGen Chinese Film Festival; it was also included in the second edition of Chinese film scholar and critic Zhang Xianmin’s "Top 10 Recommendations." In 2023, his documentary, “Fade,” was selected for Beijing International Short Film Festival’s NEUTRON mid-length film screenings. In 2024, he completed his narrative feature Three Castrated Goats, which was selected for the Asian Future section of the 37th Tokyo International Film Festival and nominated for Best New Director at the 61st Golden Horse Awards.
Saturday, October 31
Michelson Theater, 721 Broadway, 6th Floor
The House Without the Poet 詩人不在家 (Vita ZHANG Wei, 2024, 59min.)
This observational documentary focuses on the former residence of Hai Zi, a Chinese poet who rose to fame following the cultural revolution and committed suicide at 26. With his residence turned into a pilgrimage site, the poet’s mother who lives there receives visitors of varied backgrounds and purposes.
Vita ZHANG Wei worked as an investigative journalist for several years. She is now a freelance artist, filmmaker and writer. A House without the Poet was selected for BISFF2024 NEUTRON. Her short film, “Tide,” was selected for the Geopolitical Film Festival. She has published poetry collections in Chinese and Spanish. Her performance art works have been presented in art galleries, urban streets, ruins and natural sites, and performance art festivals.
The Opposite of Dying 死的對頭 (ZHANG Peiyuan, 2024, 38min.)
Tang lives alone in a cave in the mountains. He spends his days trekking and meeting friends in the local town. While this self-styled hermit has lived for years with almost no money, now he dreams of becoming a successful entrepreneur. With a deep urge to live a meaningful life, Tang is confronted by the prejudices of townsfolk who see him as nothing more than a local oddity.
ZHANG Peiyuan is a cognitive scientist at New York University. She studies people's decisions, and is especially curious about their motivations—what drives them to make significant life decisions.
Notes of a Crocodile 鱷魚手記 (Daphne Xu Yiyang, 2024, 18 min.)
News of a half-constructed building full of crocodiles brings a Chinese woman to Phnom Penh. She walks along the Mekong River in search of a lost friend.
Daphne Xu (Canada/China) is an artist and filmmaker who explores the politics and poetics of place. Her works unfold from cities in flux, tracing the interior lives of women and diasporic subjects caught between displacement and belonging, erasure and myth. Xu moves between 16mm and digital formats, using the camera as an instrument for embodied improvisation and encounter. Her films have premiered at festivals and institutions including Toronto International Film Festival, Museum of Modern Art, Visions du Réel, and Cinéma du Réel, where she won the Short Film Award in 2025. She is a MacDowell Fellow and Media City Chrysalis Fellow.
Factory 工廠 (ZHOU Hao, 2024, 2h28min.)
In early 2020, as the epidemic erupted in Wuhan, we gain rare access to Lenovo’s largest production hub, documenting its struggle to restart operations in the midst of global turmoil. But this is not just a story about the pandemic. Beneath the surface lies a deeper battle—one of survival against the dual pressures of COVID-19 and the relentless strain of U.S.-China trade tensions.
Inside this massive supply chain giant, both workers and managers must navigate uncertainty, redefining their roles to keep the factory—and their futures—alive. More than just a workplace, Lenovo’s Wuhan plant is a living organism, adapting, evolving, and fighting to sustain the livelihoods, materials, and dreams of thousands. As the world’s economic tides shift, this is a gripping testament to resilience, innovation, and survival of its workers and their families in an era of global disruption.
ZHOU Hao is a documentary filmmaker who worked as a journalist for more than a decade, producing documentaries since 2001. Zhou’s works have won awards and been screened at film festivals around the world more than a hundred times. His 2014 film Cotton won Best Documentary at the 51st Golden Horse Film Festival. Zhou’s 2015 film, The Chinese Mayor, won the Special Jury Award for “Unparalleled Access” at the 31st Sundance Film Festival, Best Documentary at the 9th Asian Film Awards, and the Best Documentary Award for the second time in a row at the 52nd Golden Horse Film Festival.
To Be A Woman（Enen Yo, 2024, 36min.）
After marrying Yuji, a Chinese woman Ling is allowed to stay in Japan. Ling has always wanted a child but discovers that her husband is transgender and has unilaterally prepared to undergo female hormone therapy and gender reassignment surgery. Ling finds inner fulfillment in Yohei, a single father.
Enen Yo is a writer-director graduated from Beijing Film Academy in 2015. She relocated to Japan in 2018 and earned her MFA in filmmaking at Rikkyo University. Her first feature film, Double Life, had its world premier at the Tallinn Black Night’s Film Festival in 2022. Her second feature is My Husband’s Room (2023).
Come Dance with Me 來來 (LIU Yunyi & Wei Bozhi, 2024, 91min.)
Lai Lai Ballroom gained its fame in the past two decades within Shanghai’s gay community. It was particularly popular among middle-aged and elderly gay men. This place opened its arms to men with all kinds of stories: a monk who yields to his own desire, an AIDS carrier who runs from one hurting relationship to another, and a transgender man making a living with fake boobs. They found a moment of comfort and understanding here, before returning to what life expected of them in the real world. In May 2018, this place was suspended. Nobody knew whether it would ever re-open.
LIU Yunyi (b. 1994) currently works and lives in Shanghai. She is a graduate of the School of Sociology at East China Normal University in Shanghai. In 2015, she started DV documentary making. Her first documentary, Come Dance with Me, was made between 2016 and 2018.
Born in 1989, WEI Bozhi graduated from Shanghai Art and Design Academy in 2011, majoring in new media. Since graduation, Wei has been involved in film production mainly in shooting and editing. In 2015 he worked on the project, “Love in the Park” with MoCA Pavilion. He later edited documentaries including Acrobatic Life and 51 Personae.
Sunday, November 1
Michelson Theater, 721 Broadway, 6th Floor
Line (sickgirl, 101min. 2026) sneak preview (w online Q & A).
A young Chinese photographer and her partner embark on a life-altering journey after a period of profound upheaval. As the familiar rhythms of their world begin to unravel, their idealism collides with a harsh new reality. Seeking a path toward renewal and a sense of true autonomy, they make the difficult and desperate decision to leave everything behind, venturing into the unknown…
Sickgirl is a Xiamen-based self-taught photographer who was raised by an adoptive family in Guiyang. After leaving school at a young age, she educated herself through the internet. Exploring personal history, taboo, violence, and marginalized communities through photography and documentary, she finds a sense of stability amid an unsettled life. Her photobooks include u make me sick (2021) and Alien (2026).
Hostile Landscapes 不明的風景 (ZHANG Hanwen, 2025, 60min.)
A two-channel film revolving around the remarkable true story of Ju Hyeongeon 주현건), a North Korean defector who was imprisoned in Jilin Prison, Northeast China, since 2013, for illegal border-crossing, theft, and robbery. In October 2021, Ju escaped the prison with his bare hands and managed to elude local police and authorities for 40 days, before he was ultimately captured near the Fengman Dam, an historically significant location with deep Japanese colonial ties.
ZHANG Hanwen is an artist and filmmaker originally from Changchun, China. Grounded in photography and video/film, his practice utilizes “documentary” as a self-reflexive narrative device and extends to diverse fields including sound, installation, and writing. Zhang holds a BS from Tsinghua University and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York. He was a German Chancellor Fellow (AvH Foundation) in 2024–25.
The Land in Between 中間之地 (ZHOU Yilu, 2025, 15min.)
In a remote village in Xinjiang, language lost creates a quiet barrier between generations. Mountains, wrinkles, songs, children’s eyes—a bond beyond words—lingers in the air.
[courtesy of Cathayplay.com]
ZHOU Yilu is a filmmaker and visual artist currently living and working in Hangzhou. She graduated in Film Directing from the University of Edinburgh in 2024. Her work focuses on memory, perception, and the flow of emotions within cultural ruptures, seeking to capture moments that language cannot reach.
Inner Light 親愛的佧儷比努爾 (Elyar Tursun (Alex) 2023, 52min.)
Kalibnur, a resilient deaf woman who never received schooling like her siblings, endured a painful love and raised her child alone. Only years later did she learn the truth of a medical accident. Her life is full of hardship, yet she insists on defining its meaning herself.
[courtesy of Cathayplay.com]
Elyar Tursun (Alex) is a filmmaker from Xinjiang, currently based in Guangzhou. He graduated with an MA Documentary Filmmaking from Chongqing University's MFA Film Academy in 2023. He is the founder and curator of SANSAKU Art Space (Guangzhou), where he explores the boundaries of cultural integration across eras through multidisciplinary art initiatives.
To Say, Farewell 道·別(WANG Libo, 2024, 88min.)
In a Manhattan apartment in New York, there lived a 96-year-old solitary elderly person, Gao Yaojie, the first grassroots AIDS activist in China. Gao was forced to flee to the United States from China at the age of 82. The elderly woman’s long and tumultuous life mirrors the turbulent modern history of China. The film documents the lonely last three months of her life. On 10 December 2023, Gao Yaojie passed away in New York.
WANG Libo is an artist and an award-winning independent filmmaker. His filmography includes Buried (2009), Oh, The San Xia（Three Gorges Dam, 2013, Entropy (2016 ), Therapy (2019), To Say, Farewell (2024), Shadows on the Canvas (2026). He is currently based in New York.