Yang Fudong is perhaps the most famous of the younger generation of artists currently working in China. Although trained as a painter, he is recognised internationally as a remarkable film-maker, whose films explore the tension between the myth and actuality of Chinese culture.

East of Que Village centres on an untamed and untethered pack of dogs, surviving at the most basic level of existence, in an arid, desolate, and unforgiving expanse of northern Chinese landscape. A handful of humans also appear, engaged in their own dogged battle for survival. The work questions the value of life in contemporary China, and the desires an individual has a right to expect from his or her existence. It is perhaps Fudong's most personal film to date, drawing on the bitter and cold feelings that he associates with the rural China of his childhood, and which embody for him a sense of isolation and loss that is increasingly present within society.