Leading Chinese director Zhang Yang turns his perceptive eye to the inner dynamics of one post-Cultural Revolution family in Beijing and produces an emotionally affecting drama that illuminates three decades of change in China.
In 1976, Xiangyang is reunited with his father, Gengnian, an artist released from a labour camp in the wake of Mao's death. It's an emotional reunion but generational conflict soon rears its head and Xiangyang, whose feelings of confusion and dis-placement mirror the society around him, perpetrates a shocking act of self-sabotage that both binds him to and alienates him from his father.
Featuring commanding performances by Sun Haiying as the unbending father and Joan Chen as the boy's devoted mom, combined with rich period details that exemplify the transformation of Beijing, Sunflower is a moving, elegiac look at a family's struggle to adjust to each other as the fabric, politics and social mores of Chinese society rapidly change.
Winner Best Director at San Sebastian Film Festival.