25 apr 2023 mk2 films adds Un Certain Regard title ‘Only The River Flows’ to Cannes slate

Paris-based mk2 films has boarded Wei Shujun’s Only The River Flows following the film’s late addition to Cannes’ Un Certain Regard Selection.

The film, based on Yu Hua’s short novel Mistakes By The River, follows a chief of police as he investigates a series of murders in a riverside town in rural China in the 1990s. Though an arrest is made quickly, clues push the policeman to delve deeper into the hidden behaviour of the locals and piece together the truth. The film stars Zhu Yilong as the police chief, following the actor’s role in last year’s Chinese box-office hit Lighting Up the Stars.

Only The River Flows is the third film from the Chinese director following Striding Into The Wind (Cannes Label 2020) and Ripples Of Life that screened in Directors’ Fortnight in 2021. Zhang Yimou’s To Live was also an adaptation of Yu Hua’s book of the same name and won multiple awards in Cannes in 1994.

Only The River Flows is the first feature produced by Hangzhou Dangdang Film alongside the director’s production company KXKH FILM. The film is distributed in mainland China by Lian Ray Pictures and Ad Vitam will distribute the title in France.

mk2 films’ managing director Fionnuala Jamison said mk2 was “totally seduced by Wei Shujun’s singular and acerbic vision,” adding that “with his visual force and narrative skill, he has played with the detective genre in a very original way to create a film that scratches beneath the surface.”

mk2 heads into Cannes with several festival premiere titles including Justine Triet’s Anatomy Of A Fall in Competition and Un Certain Regard titles Molly Manning Walker’s How To Have Sex, Felipe Galvez’ The Settlers and Monia Chokri’s The Nature Of Love.