Xu Tong

Suan Ming

Xu Tong

Li Baicheng is a charismatic fortune teller who services a clientele of prostitutes and marginalized figures whose jobs, like his, are commonplace but technically illegal in China. He practices his ancient craft in a village near Beijing while taking care of his deaf and dumb wife Pearl, who he rescued from her family's mistreatment. Winter brings a police crackdown on both fortune tellers and prostitutes, forcing Li and Pearl into temporary exile in his hometown, where he revisits old family demons. His humble story is told with chapter headings similar to Qing Dynasty popular fiction.

Shattered

Xu Tong

唐希信

A microcosm of China past and present flows through Xu Tong’s intimate docu “Shattered,” in which the maverick indie filmmaker continues to refine his techniques and concerns shown in his previous “Wheat Harvest” and “Fortune Teller.”

麦收

Xu Tong

A documentary film showing the life of Niu Hongmiao, a 20-year-old country girl who is now a prostitute in Beijing. Around the time of wheat harvesting, she goes back home to Dingxing County, Hebei Province to visit her parents.

赤脚医生

Xu Tong

Sun Lizhe

This documentary film recounts Dr. Sun Lizhe's remarkable experience as a barefoot doctor in rural China and offers a glimpse of China's healthcare condition during and shortly after the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). Described as "Chinese Dr. Zhivago" in the film, Sun's distinguished life began from his decision to become a "barefoot doctor" when he was an 18-year-old educated youth from Beijing sent down to the countryside. He had since saved numerous lives by performing difficult surgery when emergency situations arose. For example, he once manually removed a placenta from a peasant women's uterus during her placental dystocia. In villages where medical resources were extremely limited, Sun devoted himself to the healthcare of peasants, performing more than 3000 operations in the cave dwellings of Shaanxi province. In 1974 he was selected by Chairman Mao as one of China's five model "educated youths."

Wa Yanjing

Xu Tong

二后生, 三女子

Er Housheng is a blind musician who travels Inner Mongolia with his lover/partner Liu Lanlan performing a saucy, bawdy form of musical duet comedy. Er’s female audiences are particularly enthralled with his combination of sensuality, Rabelaisian earthiness, and frankly socially subversive lyrics.