Nighttime Sounds

Ni de yan jing bi tai yang ming liang

Director: Zhongchen Zhang
Country: China

German Premiere
2025 | 88 min. | Chinese
Subtitles: German, English

Cast_ Alin Chen, Li Yanxi, Gu Hanru Screenplay_ Zhongchen Zhang Camera_ Chang Reagon Producer_ Midi Z, Kunyang Chen, Zhao Yuyan, Wang Hongwei Rights_ HKIFF Collection

The fate of women and girls in rural China unfolds in an imaginative, mysterious, and poetic rush of images – inspired by Asian traditions.

The statues from the Song Dynasty, standing amidst the wheat fields near the village of Maozhuang, are 800 years old. Here lives eight-year-old Qing with her mother Hongmei. Her father works far from home throughout the year. Qing has a sister, but she was given away. One day, the sensitive girl encounters a ghostly, abandoned child who is searching for its mother. The two become friends and set out to find her together. While archaeological excavations are taking place nearby, Qing begins to hear a strange murmuring deep beneath the earth. Gradually, a shocking secret about her own mother rises to the surface.

A visually striking, magical social drama about the lives of women in rural China, told in a very unique style.

Director

Zhang Zhongchen was born in 1991 in Dangshan, China. He was a security guard at the Beijing Film Academy and secretly sneaked into lectures. Later, he worked as an editor on several films. In 2021, he made his directorial debut with ›The White Cow‹, winning both Best Film and Best Director at the FIRST Festival in China. ›Nighttime Sounds‹ is his second feature.

Trailer

Screenings