Perhaps Jia Zhangke’s most experimental work, Caught by the Tides began production in 2001 and incorporates footage from the director’s previous films – Unknown Pleasures (2002), Still Life (2006), and Mountains May Depart (2015). Tracing the intermittent twenty-year relationship between Qiaoqiao (Zhao Tao) and Bin (Li Zhubin), the film uses their fragile bond as a narrative thread to weave together spatio-temporal segments set in different Chinese cities. Throughout the film, Qiaoqiao remains silent, yet her quiet presence serves as a medium through which the transforming social reality is experienced and observed. These silent encounters draw a tapestry of contemporary lives imprinted with the desires, confusion, and suffering of individuals caught by the tides of history, that inexorably sweep and shape everything in their path.

Festival selection/awards: Official Selection, Competition, Cannes International Film Festival 2024

The screening will be introduced by Jimmy Tianxiang Wang.

Notes by Jimmy Tianxiang Wang.

This film is screening as part of the East Asian Film Festival 2025.