Caught by the Tides

“A film over 20 years in the making.”

In Datong, in the early 2000s, Qiao Qiao (Zhao Tao) waits for her boyfriend Guo Bin (Li Zhubin), who left for the big city and promised to send for her once he was settled. Years pass without that call, so she sets out to find him herself. Jia Zhangke builds the film from footage shot across twenty-two years, and Zhao Tao moves through all of it with the same quiet face.