200 Cigarettes from Now

Chain-smoking, daydreaming and lazing about is how Xia and her best friend Jie spend the majority of their days in his apartment in Boston. Struggling actor Jie auditions from time to time and Xia, who has put her studies in New York on hold, writes scripts for cheap Chinese soaps whilst fervently hoping to meet the boy she is in love with. It could be the messy beginnings of the fabulous film career both dream of or the hedonism of some rudderless young adults clutching at the illusion they have all the time in the world.

200 Cigarettes from Now evokes the lives and emotional worlds of two creative young Asians abroad, using fleeting impressions with lashings of sweet C-pop. Told from Xia’s perspective, the film uses her fantasies, doubts, impulses and obsessions to provide a snapshot of the fragile moment at which nothing is set in stone and everything is still possible.