China's cinema was once dominated by opera-like films that could be about anything but China's reality. That changed radically after the Cultural Revolution. The result is films that attempt nothing more than to look at and reflect on everyday life, and which are captivating in the freshness with which they do so. When the first graduates of the reopened film schools presented their films in the 1980s, the Western audience took their breath away: Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou, Li Shaohong or Tian Zhuangzhuang presented works that were thematically different, freed from the studio stages and moved out into the landscapes. Afterwards, younger people joined them and sought to break taboos in terms of content and form. A film that can be launched in the West with the label "Censored in China" will find a larger audience than one that simply comes out. This is part of the marketing economy that is now being cultivated in China itself. The contradiction in the behavior of those in power, said one filmmaker, "is between the very rapid and strong development of the country and the mentality that has not yet moved. The official view of things has not yet changed. But it's a matter of time." And that would inevitably lead us to Mao, who noted, "Time takes care of everything."