Indie Chinese Cinema Week 2023

Launched in 2022 by CiLENS e.V., Indie Chinese Cinema Week (ICCW) is a unique initiative that curates and screens captivating, creative, groundbreaking and emotionally evocative films by talented filmmakers from Sinophone regions. ICCW aims to foster transcultural communication and facilitate in depth exploration of the contemporary Chinese-speaking world with Berlin/European audiences. 

In its second edition, viewers will journey through the transcontinental travelog of Chinese marble, listen to the diasporic melodies of Cuban Chinatown, witness a Tibetan girl’s home-coming pilgrimage, enter into a century-long family saga of female desires, savor the unique experiences of blind massage therapists in urban Nanjing, step into the lives of young migrant factory workers and see through the eyes of ambitious filmmakers in a small town.

In addition to seven feature films, there will be a series of fascinating shorts that demonstrate the maverick visions of young, Sinophone filmmakers. These diverse, intimate and interconnected stories will take Berlin audiences on a journey of exploration, one that deepens their understanding of contemporary China, the Chinese-speaking world and its globalized localities.

TANG Xuedan (Echo) is a Berlin-based film curator and cultural worker from Chengdu, China interested in cinema, feminism, and socially engaged practices. She founded CiLENS Berlin and Indie Chinese Cinema Week in 2022.

WANG Zifei is a Ph.D. candidate at Heidelberg University whose research focuses on Asian cinema and cultures. 

ZHANG Manying, a student at the Berlin University of Arts and a film journalist, is currently a research fellow at the China Contemporary Animation Art Archive.

Curatorial assistants: HE Lin, DONG Mengdi, LI Weiqi, CHEN Wenbei