Black Snow

Li Huiquan comes back to Beijing after finishing a three year sentence in a labour camp. He has no family, no work and no friends left. He struggles to make a living and wants to build a decent life. But his old circle does not let go of him and pulls him back to the same place. Xie Fei adapted the film from a novel by Liu Heng, with Jiang Wen in the lead. Its Chinese title, benmingnian, means the year of a person's own zodiac sign that comes round every twelve years, counted unlucky in folk belief. The film was shot just before the events of 1989 and carries the closed-in feeling of that moment without making a single political statement. It won a Silver Bear at the 1990 Berlin Film Festival. The streets of Beijing are the real character in it.