Synopsis



“THE MISTS OF TIME”
Shanghaï 1938-1948-Today

(synopsis)

Ninoushka and Matthias’s lives flow like time, breathtaking, anguished, passionate, marvelous…

In 1938, Matthias, a European citizen, magician/illusionist, banished from Hong Kong for his revolutionary activities, lands on the shores of Shanghaï (the Huampu).

Meanwhile, on the train coming from the town of Harbin arrives the beautiful Ninoushka, daughter of a Russian Cossack escaped from the Bolshevik revolution. She’s in Shanghaï to work as a ballet dancer in a theatre that will turn out to be a cabaret.

It’s in this atmosphere of riches and glamour in the cabaret “LA LANTERNA”, in the heart of the French International concession in Shanghaï that they will meet and that will start their passionate love affair..

In this town, the intense fragments of peoples lives and pasts are always present and intertwined; the memory of these elegant Europeans, the restaurants, tea houses, beautiful women and the town’s sometimes unbearable humidity.

In this Shanghaï reputed to be the worlds most fascinating town, these foreign Japanese invaders… This world of diplomats and conspirators; these incredible protagonists; policemen, spies, adventurers, smugglers… these forbidden games and fortunes that change hands at the turn of a wheel… But also the dark days, the horror of a never ending and cruel war…

The war will separate Matthias and Ninouchka, but they will seek each other their whole lives after an insufferable separation.

Sixty years later, they find themselves in the Shanghaï of today and reunite. They decide never to leave each other again and destroy their passports so as to better disappear in this cosmopolitan jungle.

*Huampu (Huangpu), Shanghaï harbor river.
*Harbin, Manchurian town with strong concentration of Russian immigrants.
*The French International concession, created in 1849.