Art College 1994

In the 1990s, a group of students on the campus of the Chinese Southern Academy of Arts are pursuing their studies and preparing to face the world. China is opening up to the West and the students’ lives are a tangle of love stories and friendships, artistic research, ideals and ambitions brought about by new influences. Caught between tradition and modernity, they have to decide who they want to become.
Filmmaker and painter Liu Jian returns to the Berlinale Competition with an animated film that combines stylised modern illustrations with a passion for art and life. Suffused with a dark offbeat humour, his work depicts the hopes and artistic dreams of an entire generation as it passes into adulthood. People, events and styles blend with the urban and winter landscape of a country undergoing rapid change.