Tender Madness Pictures

Weaving together footage filmed and broadcast by little-known Chinese live-streaming anchors, who struggle with real-life face-to-face social interaction because of their identity, disability and social-economic status, this cinematic collage explores how individuals satisfy their cravings for human connection through virtual togetherness, and how these virtual relationships challenge standard definitions of companionship.

In the Shandong province, an old farmer woman falls. That is enough for her children to sign her up in a nursing home. Nevertheless, places are rare and the poor ill woman is forced to live at her unwelcoming children’s, waiting for a bed to be freed.

Lili, a young mother, lives with her gambler husband in a remote part of Sichuan. Lonely and poor, she heads for the city in a bid to earn enough money to save her dying father.