Shanghai Daughter

Manifesto​​​​​​​​​​

China | 2026 | Mandarin, Dǎi Language | 94 min | Drama | DCP

Synopsis

Ming, a woman from Shanghai, travels alone to a rubber tree plantation in Xishuangbanna, China’s southwestern border, where her late father was sent during the Cultural Revolution’s Down to the Countryside Movement half a century ago. She attempts to find someone who once knew her father. The old house of the former production team is now on the verge of demolition, and a mining company and modern agricultural projects, which have replaced the rubber plantations of the past, are quietly transforming the land. A farm officer, a rural doctor, a Dai elder (The Dai are one of the ethnic minorities in southwest China), a rubber tapper, a young ecologist, and a mystery woman who has a special connection with Ming—they drift into her journey one after another. Through their respective oral narratives and her own experience of getting lost and seeking, something deep in the jungle pulls Ming into a web of layered truths.

Credits