Against the backdrop of millennial fervor, filmmaker Joanne Cheng journeys from Times Square to Tiananmen Square seeking a definition of China on the eve of the 21st Century. Interviewing internet surfers, business executives, avant-garde artists, punk rockers, "China Watchers" and Westerners living in China, she reveals a society in transitional mode as it moves rapidly towards modernity.

China Gold Rush

MAMA'S GOLD is a heartfelt story of one woman (China Mama) and her 300 ethnic orphans, aged from 2 to 17 years old, many who are survivors of the devastating earthquakes and poverty that struck southwest China in 1996 and 1998. Seen through the close observation of the orphanage's daily life and juxtaposed with the filmmaker's visit to the children's original villages deep in the mountains, the film reveals the painful healing process of orphans struggling to cope with the psychological scars of their past. Paralleled in the film, and against the backdrop of China in the midst of a historical transformation is the conflict China Mama has with her one time friend/donor from the United States, consequently resulting in an unsettling lawsuit that threatens to close the orphanage. MAMA's GOLD makes direct comment on survival, loneliness and the universal struggle in face of great challenges.

Mama's Gold: The Orphans of Shangri-La

In C/O BUTTERFLY, the viewer encounters an abortion, enters a womb, a cave, a stream-of-consciousness to meet two women at the crossroad both haunted by lives that could have been. PHOENIX, in her 40s and an unmarried writer, wants a child via IVF; BUTTERFLY, in her 20s, entangled with a man of power, aborts one. Viewers walk along the chilly interiors of the nightmares of the two women haunted by the spirit of the crushed fetus who lives on. The film is a eulogy of life lost. Defying genre conventions, C/O BUTTERFLY is a hybrid of styles of documentary, psycho drama and animation. Poetic and sometimes surreal, the film explores the core issues of human dilemma all associated with womb, the source of life.