"Bedmates" by Sijing Yang, Lenti Liang, and Yangcheng Yu

Bedmates is a documentary that tells the love story between two people. The year of 2020 marks the 50th anniversary of Qide Yang and Yuxian Gao's marriage. Back in 1970, fifty years ago, China was experiencing Cultural Revolution. Families were divided into five classes according to the amount of land they owned: landlord, rich peasant, middle peasant, poor peasant and farmhand. The Cultural Revolution was seen as a proletarian revolution, and the landowning families were one of the main objects of criticism. Both Yuxian Gao, from a landlord's family, and Qide Yang, from a rich peasant's family, have become targets in this revolution. Gao and Yang got married after meeting for only several times on the recommendation of a matchmaker due to their similar class status. The long-lasting union of Gao and Yang gives them three daughters and now great-grandchildren. The secrets hidden in fifty years of marriage are as hard to explain as the state of a marriage implied by words like Bedmates. The purpose of the documentary is both to explore the impact of the Cultural Revolution on the marital relationships of countless other Chinese families like Gao and Yang, and, in turn, to try to reveal a small part of the Cultural Revolution era from the perspective of a family.