"Another breakthrough by a director who has never stopped pushing either himself or his idea of what a Chinese movie can do and be." – Grantland

It's 1999 and childhood friends Liangzi and Zhang compete for the love of the beautiful Tao (Jia muse and MIFF 2013 guest Zhao Tao). Tao picks the wealthier Zhang, and their lives are spun wildly into the globalising, hyper-capitalist world of the 21st century. As Tao, Zhang and their son Dollar travel through the next 25 years – through divorce, emigration to Australia, wealth, love and loss – we witness the story of modern China in all its vastness and paradoxical complexity.

From Jia Zhang-ke (A Touch of Sin, MIFF 2013) comes Mountains May Depart, an all-encompassing survey of the past, present and future of the Chinese moment. A film of big ideas that never loses sight of its human core, this is filmmaking of rare ambition and expanse, an emotionally resonant work that taps into the most important issues facing the world today.

"The ternary chronology also allows Jia to more trenchantly probe the upheavals of China's breakneck economic development, the most fascinating results of which come in the faintly surreal third section of the film, which tracks Dollar's life in a futuristic Australia." – Senses of Cinema