CAUGHT BY THE TIDES

One of the festival’s more ambitious films, director Jia Zhang-ke uses footage shot more than 20 years ago interspersed with newly shot work, in this bold, impressionistic blend of fiction and documentary. Once again, Jia focuses his lens on the story of a country transitioning out of Deng Xiaoping’s China, this time leading up to a post-COVID-era full of economic and cultural uncertainty. Helping illustrate this is the intertwining story of a rocky romance between a young working-class woman and the club manager she works for. Traversing all of Jia''s past films and spanning 21 years of a country going through profound transformation, CAUGHT BY THE TIDES offers a new perspective on the state of contemporary China, as well as the individual experiences under the turbulent emotional and social changes.