About this Event
Film Screening on 04/11/26: Girls Always Happy (2018)
From poetic self-expression to unruly intimacy, two films rethink how Chinese women are seen, heard and represented on screen
Becoming Her: New Female Narratives in Chinese Cinema is a two-part screening series exploring how contemporary Chinese cinema is reshaping the ways women are seen, heard and represented on screen.
Bringing together Fan Jian’s documentary Still Tomorrow (2016) and Yang Mingming’s fiction feature Girls Always Happy (2018), the series moves between documentary and fiction, public visibility and private intimacy, poetic self-expression and everyday conflict.
Girls Always Happy | 《柔情史》| 2018 | Drama | 1h 56m
Written, directed by and starring Yang Mingming, centers on the volatile relationship between a mother and daughter whose intimacy is shaped by affection, resentment, dependence and creative frustration. Refusing idealized images of motherhood and female harmony, the film allows its women to be contradictory, difficult and deeply human.
Rather than offering a single image of contemporary Chinese womanhood, Becoming Her presents female subjectivity as unfinished, contested and continually negotiated.
Each screening will include a short curatorial introduction and a moderated post-screening discussion. No prior knowledge of Chinese cinema or feminist film theory is required. Attendees are welcome to attend just one, or both screenings in the series.
Content Warning: The films contain mature themes relating to family conflict, marriage, disability, sexuality, emotional distress and financial precarity. Further film-specific content information is provided below.
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As Part of the Programming, this sceening follows on from last weeks screening [28/10/26] will screen Still Tomorrow (2016).
Still Tomorrow |《摇摇晃晃的人间》 | 2016 | Documentary | 1h 28m
Follows poet Yu Xiuhua as literary recognition transforms both the possibilities and pressures of her life. Through poetry, disability, marriage and desire, the film asks what it means for a woman to claim authority over her own voice and story. Tickets for this screening can be booked here.
Agenda
🕑: 06:30 PM
Doors Open
🕑: 06:45 PM
Welcome & Curatorial Introduction
🕑: 06:50 PM
Screening Begins
🕑: 08:50 PM
Post-screening discussion with invited PhD researchers, followed by audience Q
🕑: 09:15 PM
Doors Close
Event venue & nearby stays
UCL East Cinema, UCL East, One Pool Street, Barking, United Kingdom
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