Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl

Actress Joan Chen makes her directorial debut with this bleak tale -- adapted from the award-winning novella "Tian Yu" by Shanghai writer Yan Geling -- about the loss of innocence during Mao Zedong's brutal Cultural Revolution, surrounding its precocious title character, Wen Xiu (played by 16-year-old Lu Lu), who finds herself one of millions of Chinese teenagers sent to the hinterlands to receive specialized training during the early 1970s. (AMG)