Chinese film has received widespread global attention since the 1980s. Directors such as Zhang Yimou, Jia Zhang-ke and Wang Bing have created a sensation at international film festivals and are acknowledged as chroniclers of a society in transition. Recent Chinese films are largely presented and received on the assumption that its (presumed or actual) subversive tendencies and criticism of the state differs fundamentally from those that preceded them; further, that their precise observation of social transformation processes represent a liberation from banal and dogmatic cinema and communist propaganda, and that their aim is to detach themselves from the past. But upon closer scrutiny, this opposition does not bear up and what instead becomes clear is that Chinese cinema has always been multi-faceted and dynamic and cannot be reduced to simple ideological positioning. Moreover, even when cinema has been used for reasons of propaganda it has been impressively heterogeneous and varied in form.

Between landmarks and moments of confusion – the Magical History Tour invites you on a journey through spaces that are full of meaning – staged, narrative and social. Each film takes place in a defined space whose construction is of great importance for the film's impact on the spectator. The variously arranged spaces not only allow for the marking of different styles (naturalism or artificiality) but also evoke moods and feelings (of vastness or confinement) in a cinematic manner. We are showing 10 films in which space plays a particular role, for either the plot or the protagonists' expression of feelings.