Chunshu, an actress whose career (and love life) have fallen apart, returns home to Chengdu from Beijing. The problem is, she’s been gone for over ten years, and finds she can’t speak the local dialect. Trying to reconnect, she moves in with her mother, visits her old acting coach, and may be falling for Dongdong, who has just moved to town himself.

Zhang Lu’s slow-burn semi-rom-com is also a love letter to Chengdu’s fading cinema scene. Emei Film Studios was the premiere studio of Chinese cinema decades ago, and Mothertongue was shot there just before it was demolished. A movie for romantics, linguists and lovers of old cinema.