Girls Always Happy (Rou qing shi)

This wonderfully bitter comedy drama lays bare a complex yet oddly co-dependent mother-daughter relationship, all set against an intriguing lower-middle-class backdrop in Beijing. Writer, director, editor and lead actor Yang Mingming is terrific as wonderfully sour twenty-something writer Wu, who rides her push scooter through the streets with blissful abandon. Her relationship with her mother (Nai An) veers from ferocious bickering to playful banter, with the pair more similar than either will admit. Bleakly funny and insightful.

Supported by the Confucius Institute for Scotland.