Leftover Women

Participants from the film sat around a dinner table

Screenings

February 08, 2020
6:00 PM /
De Balie
Amsterdam
Discussion to follow with Yaqiu Wang, China Researcher at Human Rights Watch
QA Session with the Filmmaker
Buy Tickets
March 13, 2020
6:30 PM /
Barbican
London
Q&A to follow the screening with filmmaker Shosh Shlam and Dr. Sun Jinyu, Writer on gender issues in China and Hong Kong
QA Session with the Filmmaker
Buy Tickets
March 14, 2020
4:00 PM /
Curzon Soho
London
Q&A to follow the screening with filmmaker Shosh Shlam and Dr. Sun Jinyu, Writer on gender issues in China and Hong Kong
QA Session with the Filmmaker
Buy Tickets

In China, unmarried women over the age of 27 are deemed “sheng nu” or “leftover”. As an effect of the now-defunct one-child policy there are 30 million more men than women, leaving single women under immense social pressures to marry, and fast, or be rejected from society. Public dating contests, “marriage markets” where city sidewalks are lined with parents advertising their children’s attributes, and government-sponsored matchmaking festivals are just some of the humiliating ordeals that single women face. This eye-opening documentary follows three women in their gruelling quest to find a husband, weighing the cost of family and society’s approval against their own chances of happiness.

UK Advisory (12A)

 

 

Filmmaker(s): 
Shosh Shlam, Hilla Medalia
Country of Production: 
Israel
Year: 
2019
84m
Language(s): 
Mandarin, Fully subtitled in English
Genre: 
Documentary
Filmmaker Bio(s): 
Hilla Medalia
Co-Director

Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Hilla Medalia has received three Emmy® nominations. Her projects have garnered critical acclaim and screened internationally in theaters and on television including HBO, MTV, BBC and ARTE. Among her range of titles include To Die in Jerusalem 2007 (HBO), After the Storm 2009 (MTV), Numbered 2012 (ARTE), Dancing in Jaffa 2013 (Tribeca, IFC Sundance selects), Web Junkie 2014 (Sundance Film Festival, POV (PBS), BBC) The Go Go Boys 2014 (Cannes Film Festival), Censored Voices 2015, (Sundance Film Festival and Berlinale), Muhi – Generally Temporary 2017 (San Francisco Film Festival, HotDocs, AFI, Docaviv). Medalia holds a Master of Arts from Southern Illinois University.

Shosh Shlam
Co-Director

Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund | 2011

Shosh Shlam (Co-Director/Co-Producer) A winner for best documentary at Lublin Film Festival, Poland and Best Documentary Honorable Mention at Haifa International Film Festival. Shosh Directed and produced the documentary Be Fruitful And Multiply (2005), a film about an ultra orthodox woman, for who life is a perpetual cycle of pregnancy, birth, and constant nursing. She doesn't have the freedom to determine the course of her life. She serves God via the womb. The film Broadcasted on Channel 2 Israel and European TV Channels, and participated in film festivals around the world. Shosh also directed and produced the award winning documentary Last Journey Into Silence (2002), a story about Holocaust survivors in mental institutions in Israel. The film Broadcasted on CH1 Israel and film festivals around the world. Shosh was an assistant director for Love at Second Sight (2000), a feature film by Michal Bat Adam. Shosh was a theatre actress for 14 years at Haifa Theatre and The Cameri Theatre and graduated in Comparative and Hebrew Literature at Bar-Ilan University and the Theatre Department at Tel-Aviv University. She also Studied at Uta Hagen drama school in N.Y. and the Film School at N.Y.U.

Distributor: 
MetFilm Sales
Film Website: 
Film website
Presented in partnership with: 

“Leftover Women is an intimate portrait of three educated and independent Chinese women who want to love and live a life on their own terms, and their struggle against a society that places filial piety above anything else and sees women’s paramount value as being in a marriage.”

Yaqiu Wang, China Researcher, Human Rights Watch

To learn more on this topic visit HRW.org