During the 1970's Cultural Revolution, two bourgeois young men from the city are sent to a remote, culturally barren mountain village for re-education in Maoist principles. Discovering a hidden cache of books by western writers, including Balzac, the pair transmit their love of art and literature to the knowledge-hungry local seamstress (Xun Zhou), with whom they promptly both fall in love...

Nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film, 'Balzac And The Little Chinese Seamstress' is an evocative and luminously shot paean to a time long past and to the realisation that change can bring freedom.