Yiyun Li

The Princess of Nebraska

Sasha is a young woman from Beijing, studying in Nebraska. She flies to the Bay Area and meets up with friends, including Boshen, a gay man who was the lover of Yang, a member of Beijing's Opera who got Sasha pregnant four months before. She's made an appointment at a clinic for the next day. Boshen thinks he, she, Yang, and the baby can be a family. After a contentious dinner, Sasha meets X, a call girl on her way to a party with older men. Sasha goes too. Later, Sasha asks X to travel the world with her. Reality awaits the next day. As the annual St. Stupid's Day Parade passes by, Boshen accompanies Sasha to the clinic. What will she decide?

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers

The film follows Mr. Shi, a retired widower from Beijing. When his only daughter, Yilan, who lives in Spokane, Washington and works as a librarian, gets divorced, he decides to visit her to help her heal. However, Yilan is not interested. She tries keeping an emotional distance but when this finally fails she begins physically avoiding her father. He confronts her about an affair with a married Russian man and she, in turn, lets loose about all the gossip she'd heard as a young girl about his alleged affair with a female colleague back in China.