Blue Sun Palace

Constance Tsang's first feature film, winner of the Jury Prize at the Cannes Critics' Week, explores the daily lives of two Chinese immigrants in Flushing, a neighbourhood in Queens (New York) where the director grew up. Many of her personal and family experiences are translated into the story of Amy and Didi, workers at a massage parlour whose name gives the film its title. United by a feeling of rootlessness, the two women form a strong friendship that is put to the test after an unexpected tragedy during the Lunar New Year. On top of this, each has a relationship with the same married man, played by Taiwanese director and actor Lee Kang Sheng, a regular collaborator of Tsai Ming-Liang. Melancholic, moving and humanistic, Blue Sun Palace captures the feelings and motivations of this triangle of characters, traversed by the desire for love, grief and the need to find their place in the world.