Italian Premiere with FESCALL (African, Asian, Latin American, Film Festival, Milan) | In Competition
China, 2025, 122’, Mandarin
Directed by: Pengfei
Screenplay: Pengfei, Xu Yizhou, Shang Xuetao
Based on: The Aeronaut by Shuang Xuetao
Cinematography (color): Lv Songye
Editing: Huang Zeng Hongchen
Art Director: Liu Qing
Music: Suzuki Keiichi
Sound: He Wei
Visual Effects Supervisor: Zhang Yu
Chief Producers: Ren Xiaoyi, Ma Xiang
Producers: Cai Mingyang, Song Zizheng
Executive Producers: Wang Hongwei, Shuang Xuetao
Production Companies: Shanghai Maoyan Pictures, Shanghai Haimu Film Group, China Film Creative, Beijing Pineapple Street Film, Tianjin Maoyan Weying
Cast: Jiang Qimin (Li Mingqi), Li Xueqin (Gao Yufeng), Dong Baoshi (Gao Xuguang), Jiang Wu (Gao Likuan), Dong Zijian (Zhuang Dezeng), Yang Le (Li Zhengdao), Ying Ze (Liu Xiaoling), Lei Jiayin (Chief of the Tv Station), Jiang Yi (Lang Guoqing)
Date of First Release in Territory: January 17th, 2026
Chinese cinema has accustomed us to observing the country’s transformation through major historical turning points: from the end of the Cultural Revolution, with the first tentative experiments in economic modernisation and freer expression, to today’s China, a global power regarded with a mixture of admiration and unease.
Take Off spans almost half a century of these changes, yet chooses an unusual, personal and surprisingly light perspective: that of an ordinary man, a genuine anti-hero, and his stubborn passion for flying.
Li Mingqi is a factory worker in north-eastern China who inherits from his father a love of hot-air balloons and the dream of parachuting. No military aviation or science fiction, but a handcrafted and often quixotic form of flight: self-built balloons, clandestine skydiving, and eventually a surreal turbine worn like a backpack, designed to allow people to move more quickly in everyday life. An idea as naïve as it is poetic, it becomes the guiding thread of an existence shaped by factory work, family responsibilities and the contradictions of a country undergoing rapid transformation.
Set in the North-East, the film captures the spirit of the region through its characteristically dry humour. It buffers melancholy and dramatic situations through the resolute temperament of its characters, without ever getting bogged down in self-pity. As a young man, Mingqi secretly works in a corner of the factory building his flying machine; in middle-age he rekindles that dream for an urgent and deeply human reason: to raise the money needed for his gravely ill grandson’s medical treatment. Amid doubt, failure and the not always unquestioning support of friends and relatives, he ultimately succeeds in turning a heap of “scrap” into something that can truly take flight.
Alongside him stand two key figures: his wife Yufang, an unwavering presence who supports him even in the darkest moments, and his brother-in-law Xuguang, whose shifting attitude reflects not only his personal vicissitudes but, more broadly, the moral and material ambiguities of a transitional era. The narrative spans nearly 50 years, following the protagonists as they move from socialism to capitalism, from factory workers to entrepreneurs, from black-and-white television to the cynical logic of television marketing, constantly striving to preserve dignity and human relationships.
Mingqi appears as a kind of modern-day Icarus, yet devoid of the mythical character’s narcissism: he does not fly for ambition or glory, but out of a stubborn faith that can come by looking beyond the everyday horizon. An ideal evoked by a famous quotation attributed to Hegel and repeated several times in the film: “A nation is without hope if it does not look to the stars” is here stripped of nationalist rhetoric and brought back to an individual and universal dimension.
The film is adapted from
The Aviator, a collection of short stories by Shang Xuetao, an author much admired by younger generations of filmmakers for his ability to blend realism and surrealism within the proto-industrial landscapes of the North-East, as in
My Friend An Delie (FEFF 2025), directed by and starring Dong Zijian, who also appears in
Take Off in a minor yet crucial role in the story’s development. While the literary work intertwines the perspectives of three generations, Pengfei focuses the narrative on Li Mingqi, simplifying the complex family genealogy and transforming a reflection on collective destiny into an intimate story of dreams, perseverance and compromise.
The film is bolstered no-end by stellar performances, particularly that of Jiang Qiming, who in preparation for the role of Mingqi spent two months living in a north-eastern factory, learning its dialect and way of life.
Take Off was shot entirely on location, using a specially constructed hot-air balloon with elaborately staged high-altitude sequences. A major production effort that reinforces the visual authenticity of a film capable of recounting Chinese history through the steadfast gaze of someone who simply continues to look onwards and upwards.
Pengfei
Pengfei (b. 1982) is a director and screenwriter. After graduating from secondary school, he moved to France to pursue his studies and he enrolled at the French International School of Film and Sound. He was deeply influenced by working alongside the distinguished filmmaker Tsai Ming-liang, serving as assistant director on Face (2008) and subsequently as co-screenwriter on Stray Dogs (2013), which received the Jury Grand Prize at Venice Film Festival. In 2015 he directed the feature film Underground Fragrance, which picked up a prize at Giornate degli Autori in Venice. In 2017, his feature The Taste of Rice Flower was also selected for Giornate degli Autori.
SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY
2015 – Underground Fragrance
2017 – The Taste of Rice Flower
2020 – Tracing the Shadow
2025 – Take Off