# "One Second"

Zhang Yimou's "One Second" was promoted as a love letter from him to the cinema industry. Set in China's northwestern Gansu province in the mid-1970s, "One Second" is a homage to cine film as well as China's publicly organized film screenings in rural areas. In the film, an obsessive father who yearns to see just a one-second clip of his missing daughter in a newsreel encounters a homeless female vagabond who wants to steal the film for her brother. It's heartbreaking to know the harsh truths beneath the surface storyline -- rather than a love letter, this film is actually an elegy to the era.