A Dog Barking at the Moon

Zi Xiang
2019
China, Spain
107 min

17 July

Saturday

2:00pm

Winner of the Teddy Jury Award at the 2019 Berlinale, Zi Xiang’s debut feature is a sensitive study of a man’s homosexuality from the perspective of his daughter and wife. Upon returning to China with her French husband to visit her family, pregnant writer Xiaoyu Huang (Gaowa Siqin) is immediately drawn into her parents’ longstanding conflicts. Caught between her reticent gay father and her cult-obsessed mother, Xiaoyu finds herself overwhelmed by their years of resentment and secrets. This forces her to confront her own memories of childhood, as she comes to terms with the tragic complexity of her family’s situation. Constantly shifting between past and present, the film powerfully reveals how the misery resulting from repressive cultural norms is passed from one generation to another.

Additional Information

Introduction by Christopher Brown, University of Sussex

Preceded by

A Woman’s Wife
Dir. Ahlam Jang | South Korea | 2018 | 20 min

Eungyeong faces heartache and confusion when her husband Seonghun decides to live as a woman.