• List Price: $24.95  
• Your Price: $24.95
• In Stock: 188

You must login to place orders.




Not purchasing for a business? See our consumer site.

Wang Lina's experimental debut explores the sensitivity shared by narrative filmmaking and documenting reality, unveiling poetry from the minutiae of Uighurs' life in Xinjiang like none other. Tailing an endearing boy named Isa in Shaya, her heavenly home village surrounded by textured sand dunes and millennia-old trees, she tugs viewers' heartstrings with a story about treasures in his carefree childhood and how they gradually fade away, as love, home, and personal advancement get weighed against another for this generation of minority children, who must bid many farewells to assimilate into the more widely acknowledged best life.

Media

Watch trailer »

Bonus Materials

• Trailers

Sales Points

• Topic subject about Uighurs in Xinjiang
• Berlinale award winner
• Female Director

Press Quotes

'First Farewell thrives on humanity rather than dogma, and offers poetry rather than propaganda...Bolstered by lush imagery and, perhaps more importantly, immensely naturalistic performances...the film conjures up a quietly heartbreaking drama that works on multiple levels.'

     —Clarence Tsui, Hollywood Reporter

'A First Farewell might be another sign of independent cinema revival in China...Wang Lina avoids stereotyping and exoticization...Uyghurs are not strangers in their own homeland, but flesh and bone protagonists with their own motivation and agency.'

     —Maja Korbecka, Easternkicks

'As captivating a debut anyone could dream of making...a painter-poet manifests superbly in this visual love-letter to Xinjiang.'

     —James Cansdale-Cook, Asian Movie Pulse

'Dedicated to her hometown of Shaya, Xinjiang, and filled with both affection and a clear-eyed understanding of its woes, this Uighur-language coming-of-age story is restrained in scale yet rousing in emotional impact.'

     —Sarah Ward, Screen International

'Stunning images of seasonal change enhance the film's themes of loss and upheaval. an emotionally rewarding glimpse into challenges faced by this Muslim minority.'

     —Richard Kuipers, Variety

'a gorgeously shot window into a world most of us hadn't looked through before.'

     —Michael Ordoña, Los Angeles Times