Director: Krisztina GODA.

 

Gábor is an office cleaner. Wearing overalls and a baseball hat, he seems insignificant. Working on the night shift, Gábor rarely has any contact with his employers, yet he learns everything about them by thoroughly analyzing their garbage. Since he is almost invisible, nobody suspects that Gábor is, in fact, a con man who carefully chooses his victims by the trash they leave behind. His targets are mostly disillusioned, lonely women. In a few months he destroys all their romantic illusions by taking all their savings. Having an unusually high IQ and an ability to assume various personalities, Gábor is an expert in manipulation. When he gets a job at a psychologist's office, Gábor meets Hanna, an injured dancer who happens to be the daughter of a millionaire. Insecure and vulnerable, Hanna seems to be the perfect victim. Gábor pretends to be a doctor who can cure her body and her soul, an irresistible offer for a desperate woman. Everything goes according to plan until Gábor falls in love with Hanna and has to make a hard decision between her and the money.

Director: Wieland Schulz-Keil, Dan Tang.
The film consist of four portraits of Peking opera performers, two adults and two children. It presents a subtle picture of the present cultural-political climate in China. Peking Opera often seems puzzling and out of place, even in China. Its style is the opposite of naturalism: It is perfectly possible that young girls play elderly generals, or that a young male actor performs the heroine's sword dance from "Farewell my Concubine." The radical artificiality of Peking Opera has often met resistance. During the Cultural Revolution of the 60s and 70s, it was considered decadent and was outlawed. Today it seems hopelessly old-fashioned compared to the new currents of popular culture. -- While visiting a Peking Opera school the filmmakers met a number of teachers and pupils who are working hard and with admirable devotion to keep their highly refined music and dance theatre alive. The theatre people not only taught them about their century old Chinese art form, but also about their lives in the midst of a mostly imported new culture.