This film screened on Saturday 28th  February 2015.

Considered by many as one the finest works from the first great era of Chinese filmmaking, Fei Mu’s quiet, piercingly poignant study of adulterous desire and guilt-ridden despair is different from other films of the era. In a time when most films were coloured by the politics of the time, Spring in a Small Town – now restored – is a story of a woman with a love dilemma. Fei Mu’s film takes place following WWII, with China brought to its knees by the actions of the Japanese and prior to the rise of the Communists, led by Chairman Mao. Wei Wei plays a woman who lives a lonely life, shackled by her care for her gentle but ill husband (Shi Yu) – that is until her first love reappears into her life. (Notes by BFI)

Spring in a Small Town will be screening as part of the Dublin Chinese New Year Festival 2015, The Year of the Sheep, February 14th – 28th.

★★★★★ The Irish Times, ★★★★★ The Guardian