Fan Casting Eclipsed Dawn: The Ai Xia Story

In the heart of Shanghai’s roaring 1930s, a city alive with jazz, rebellion, and silent cinema, Eclipsed Dawn tells the hauntingly poignant story of Ai Xia, the trailblazing actress and screenwriter whose meteoric rise and tragic fall mirror the turbulence of her time. Ai Xia, born into modest means, broke barriers in the male-dominated film industry as a bold voice in left-wing cinema. With her haunting performances and incisive scripts, she became the voice of a generation grappling with war, colonialism, and the fight for social justice. But behind the camera’s glow and the adulation of fans lay a woman caught in the vice grip of artistic ambition, societal expectations, and personal despair. The film chronicles her tumultuous journey, from her passionate entry into filmmaking and her rise as a silent film star to her fraught relationship with fame and her eventual tragic death. It delves into her struggle to balance her revolutionary ideals with the pressures of an entertainment industry rife with exploitation.