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Life After Life

Panorama

This vision of post-industrial existence never succumbs to the morbid, as flickers of hope shine through the gloom.

Slant Magazine
  • Archive - Festival 32
  • Director: Zhang Hanyi
  • China 2016
  • 80 minutes
  • Mandarin
  • Subtitles in Hebrew, English

Industrial development and the migration of population have seen the gradual desolation of a Chinese village with few people left and houses collapsed. Some people die, and some ghosts return. Xiuying’s spirit who has wandered for over a decade returns to the village by borrowing her son’s body. She wants to move the tree she planted in her husband’s family yard when she got married.
The impact of China’s industrialization on rural families simmers in the background of this stylized, dreamlike tale of reincarnation and relocation, produced by leading Chinese auteur Jia Zhang-ke.
Feature Debut


  • Director Zhang Hanyi
  • Production Jia Zhangke, Zhang Yong
  • Script Zhang Hanyi
  • Cinematography Chang Mang
  • Editing Mathieu Laclau
  • Festivals Berlinale, Hong Kong (Firebird Award)
  • Actors Zhang Li, Zhang Mingjun
  • Source Ramonda Inc., Paris

Life After Life