One Second

China during the Cultural Revolution. In the midst of a lonely desert landscape, two people appear like dots on the horizon. The prisoner and the orphan girl do not yet know each other, but their paths will soon cross. He has escaped from a labour camp, risking being handed down an even longer sentence, and is undertaking an exhausting trek in the heat because he absolutely must see a particular newsreel. But of all things, this is exactly the film roll that the girl steals. While the villagers wait impatiently for the screening to begin and the fugitive feverishly awaits the one second in the film that counts for him, the silver film can is passed from hand to hand. (Berlinale)