So Long, My Son

Yaojun (Wang Jingchun, 'To Live and Die in Ordos', 'Shadow') and his wife Liyun (Yong Mei, 'The Assassin', 'You Are My Lover') are content with the way that their lives are going until tragedy strikes and their young son, Xingxing, drowns after wading into a reservoir despite not knowing how to swim. Deeply pained by their loss, Yaojun and Liyun relocate to a more urban setting in which they are more isolated than ever due to not understand a local dialect. They adopt a son on whom they also bestow the name of Xingxing, as though he is a replacement for the child they lost. Their relationship with their new son is immediately one of conflict, as Xingxing runs away from them, rejecting his parents due to their seemingly 'foreign' nature and leading to the couple returning back to the town where they lost their son all those years ago.

'So Long, My Son' spans three decades of China's history, using an intimate family portrait to explore the issues present in the backdrop of the Cultural Revolution, one child policy and financial upheaval.

'So Long, My Son' is directed by Xioshuai Wang ('Chinese Portrait', 'The Cornfield', 'Shanghai Dreams') and is written by Wang in collaboration with Mei Ah ('Under the Hawthorn Tree', 'The Law of Attraction').