Ombres de Soie (1978) + Ying & Summer (2011) + Q&A session with Gladys Ng

Set in a surreal 1935 Shanghai that is unmistakably filtered through 1970s Paris, the film follows two Chinese women, whose schoolgirl friendship has evolved into something far more complicated. Intimate glances and gestures between the two, paired with confessional voiceovers, reveal a quiet yearning that threatens to spill over. With traces of inspiration from Marguerite Duras and Alain Resnais, Ombres de Soie is a film caught between worlds, feeling historical yet modern, distant yet intimate. Poetic in its composition, it evokes the visual textures of Eileen Chang’s writing, where interiors, silences, and lingering gazes carry the depth of memory and desire. Unravelling like an essay, the film charts the tension between the women’s shared desire for stability and the compulsion to question that very desire.

Newly arrived in Melbourne, shy Chinese student Ying (Jenny Zhou) navigates the quiet loneliness of migrant life until she meets Summer (Charlotte Nicdao), a radiant and outgoing local. As their unlikely friendship unfolds, Ying & Summer explores displacement, connection and what it means to feel at home in a foreign city.