Shanghai Dreams

Wang Xiaoshuai scooped the 2005 Jury Prize at Cannes with this story from rural China in the 1980s, which tells of 19 year old Qinghong's desire to make a life in the surroundings she knows, rather than falling in with her father's dreams of leaving for prosperity in Shanghai. The movie centres on the discontented Wu Zemin, deeply protective of his beautiful daughter. He's determined that she'll go to college in Shanghai or Beijing and escape from the stultifying provincial life that is suffocating him and his circle of more sophisticated friends. A poignant family melodrama ensues as father and daughter work out the conflict in their dreams.