Blue Sun Palace
By Kit Macdonald
Acclaim has been close to universal for Blue Sun Palace since it quietly premiered at the Cannes Film Festival's Critics’ Week in May 2024, where it won the French Touch Prize and was one of the most talked-about works of the whole festival. Written and directed by the young Chinese-American filmmaker Constance Tsang, it follows the development of an unlikely bond between two migrants in the Chinese community of Queens, New York, in the aftermath of a tragedy.
Tsang puts mood and atmosphere ahead of plot, allowing her scenes and actors to breathe in long, static shots in the massage parlour in Queens in which the film is set. So great is her standing at Cannes in the wake of Blue Sun Palace that in March 2025, Tsang was announced as one of six "emerging directors" selected for the 49th session of La Résidence du Festival de Cannes, a four-month residency that allowed her to work on her keenly awaited second feature, My Mother and Yours.