A Song Sung Blue

Harbin, in the north-east of China: fifteen year-old Xian goes to live with her father while her mother, a doctor, takes a job in Africa. She has little faith in this parent who has been largely absent from her life. What’s more, he runs a small photo studio whose kitsch and glamorous atmosphere exasperates his austere and solitary daughter. Soon, she becomes fascinated by her father’s stepdaughter, a swaggering, liberated and slightly melancholic young woman. This is the chronicle of a “blue” summer that marks the end of childhood innocence. (Cannes Film Festival)