Mainland director Bai Xue’s feature debut centres on smugglers at the Hong Kong-Shenzhen border and the coming-of-age of a teenager with only one parent who has permanent residency in Hong Kong. Sixteen-year-old Peipei, who lives with her mother in Shenzhen, commutes daily across the border to attend school. She stumbles on an iPhone smuggling ring and ends up working as a mule in the hopes of earning enough money for a Japan trip to see the snow with her classmate.

The Crossing was shot in Hong Kong and Shenzhen with actors from various backgrounds, but the use of Cantonese dialogue gives the film a distinctively Hong Kong feel. There is the sense of forbidden allure, youthful restlessness, and growing pains, while the multiple boundary crossings reveal to audiences the different social realities of Hong Kong and Chinese Mainland.

The screening will be followed by a talk with director Bai Xue and Yim Ho, the director of Homecoming, moderated by Li Cheuk-to, M+ Curator-at-large of Hong Kong Film and Media. The talk will be held in Mandarin.

Bai Xue (b. 1984, China) is an up-and-coming director and scriptwriter who graduated from the Beijing Film Academy’s Department of Directing. In 2007, she won the Outstanding Film and Video Award at the Asia International Youth Film Festival with her first short, Carmen. In 2012 she directed another short, Home. Her first feature, The Crossing, turned heads when it was released in 2018. Written and directed by Bai, it won numerous accolades—it made the Generation 14plus section at the 69th Berlin International Film Festival, bagged Best Film at the 2nd Pingyao International Film Festival, and received a Best New Director nomination at the 13th Asian Film Awards. In 2026, Bai directed her second feature, It’s My Time, starring Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh.