2025 Chinese film The Botanist (植物学家) at University of Pittsburgh, September 26, part of SCREENSHOT: Asia Film Festival.

The 2025 Chinese film The Botanist (植物学家) will play in Pittsburgh on September 26, part of the SCREENSHOT: Asia Film Festival.

In a village in a remote valley on the northern border of Xinjiang, China, a lonely Kazakh boy named Arsin (Jahseleh Yesi) nurses fading memories of his family. He finds solace in the company of plants. The arrival of Meiyu (Ren Zihan), a Han Chinese girl, is like the discovery of a plant he has never seen before, bringing him comfort and a strange sense of wonder. Together, they grow like two distinct species, rooted in a shared corner of the world, imagining the valley as an endless ocean. But one day, Arsin learns that Meiyu will be moving to Shanghai, which is 4,792 kilometers away – a distance he struggles to comprehend. She is headed to a city where the ocean actually exists. Arsin is left alone to grapple with the quiet shifts in their small, fragile world.

The show starts at 1:00 pm in G24 Cathedral of Learning. Tickets are available online, and remain free for those with a Pitt ID.

2024 Taiwanese film Daughter's Daughter (女兒的女兒) in Pittsburgh, September 27, part of SCREENSHOT: Asia Film Festival.

The 2024 Taiwanese film Daughter's Daughter (女兒的女兒) will play in Pittsburgh on September 27, art of the SCREENSHOT: Asia Film Festival.

Jin Aixia (Silvia Chang) has two daughters, but Emma (Karena Lam), who grew up in New York, and Fan Zuer (Eugenie Liu), who grew up in Taipei, never knew about each other until well into adulthood. When Zuer and her partner decide to try and get pregnant via in vitro fertilization, they wind up travelling to the US for treatments. Tragically, the couple die there in an accident, but their embryo remains alive and well — and Aixia is left as its legal guardian. Arriving in New York overwhelmed with grief, she is faced with the choice to donate, terminate, or find a surrogate for the embryo. But after a life spent feeling like she’s fallen short as a mother, who is she to decide what to do with her deceased daughter’s unborn child?

2024 Toronto International Film Festival Platform Award winner, 2024 Golden Horse winner, best original screenplay.

The movie starts at 1:00 pm in 125 Frick Fine Arts in Oakland (map); please note the room change, which is not reflected on the ticketing page. Tickets are available online.

2024 film Winter in Sokcho, September 25 at Harris Theater.

The 2024 film Winter in Sokcho will play in Pittsburgh on September 25, part of the SCREENSHOT: Asia Film Festival.

In Sokcho, a small seaside village in South Korea, a young woman, Soo-Ha (Bella Kim), lives in a bit of a rut, rhythmed by visits to her mother, a fishmonger, and her relationship with her boyfriend, Jun-Ho (Gong Doyu). When a French man named Yan Kerrand (Roschdy Zem) arrives in the boarding house where Soo-Ha works, it awakens within her questions about her own identity, and that of her French father, about whom she knows almost nothing. As winter settles over the town, Soo-Ha and Kerrand will observe and gauge each other, trying to communicate any way they can – through cooking for one and drawing for the other – delicately weaving a fragile bond between them.

Tickets are free for those with a Pitt ID card---registration and promo code required---and $11 for everyone else. The movie begins at 6:00 pm at the Harris Theaer in downtown's Cultural District (map).

"Chinese Mid-Autumn and Global Food Festival" at Carnegie Mellon University, October 1.

The Department of Languages, Cultures & Applied Linguistics’ Chinese Studies program at Carnegie Mellon University and Pittsburgh’s Organization of Chinese Americans will present the 2025 Chinese Mid-Autumn and Global Food Festival on October 1.

Celebrate the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival and explore culinary traditions from around the world at this vibrant cultural event!

Free and open to the public, attendees will enjoy live performances that showcase music, dance and storytelling from East Asian cultures. Sample delicious global cuisine, connect with the greater-CMU community and take part in a joyful evening of community, culture and conversation. All are welcome — come hungry and curious!

The event runs from 6:30 to 8:30 pm in the Cohon University Center's Rangos Ballroom on the Carnegie Mellon campus in Oakland (map), and is free and open to the public.

Free "We Learn: Basic Japanese Language and Culture," Fridays at downtown Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, from October 3.

"Osaka, Japan" by Pedro Szekely (Creative Commons).

The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh's downtown branch will host "We Learn: Basic Japanese Language and Culture" on Fridays from October 3 through November 7, after the previous session ended on June 6.

Enjoy learning the basics of the Japanese language and culture from a certified, native Japanese instructor. We will learn greetings, etiquette and manners, survival phrases for traveling to Japan, visiting interesting tourist locations, and ordering food and shopping. We will also learn reading and writing – Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji, Emoji, Anime and Manga. Each session is designed to be interactive and fun. The agenda can vary based on the interests of the students.

 

We Learn groups are volunteer-facilitated peer learning groups. We Learn Groups meet in person but use a hybrid model with online learning materials. This Group meets on Fridays: Oct 3, Oct 10, Oct 17, Oct 24, Oct 31, Nov 7.

Registration is required and can be completed online. The classes run from 11:00 am, and the library is located at 612 Smithfield St. (map).

2025 movie Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle (劇場版「鬼滅の刃」無限城編) stays in Pittsburgh area through (at least) October 2.

The 2025 movie Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle (劇場版「鬼滅の刃」無限城編), which opened in Pittsburgh-area theaters on September 11, will stay here through (at least) October 2.

The Demon Slayer Corps plunge into Infinity Castle to defeat Muzan. However, the remaining Hashiras and the Demon Slayers who survived Tanjiro's Final Selection are pitted against the remaining members of the Twelve Kizuki first.

It is scheduled to play locally at many local theaters, including the Waterworks Cinemas, the AMC theaters in Waterfront and South Hills, and the Cinemark theaters in Monroeville and North Hills. Tickets, and a real-time listing of theaters, are available online.

KPOP CLUB NIGHT with DJ Chen returns to Pittsburgh, October 3.

KPOP CLUB NIGHT with DJ Chen will return to Pittsburgh on October 3.

Come and get it! Get ready for Round 2 in PGH at AVALON SOCIAL!! Join mixmaster DJ CHEN and the world-famous Kpop Club Night crew on October 3rd to sing and dance our hearts out!

This is a 21+ event. 
Doors open 10pm, curfew 2:00 am.
Physical government issued ID required. 
No Refunds. Tickets are transferrable.

Tickets are available online for $26.50. Avalon Social is a club located at 1601 E. Carson St. in the South Side (map) in what was most recently Foxtail.

BTS 2017 Live Trilogy EPISODE III THE WINGS TOUR THE FINAL Remastered in Pittsburgh, September 25 and 28.

The concert film BTS 2017 Live Trilogy EPISODE III THE WINGS TOUR THE FINAL Remastered will play in Pittsburgh on September 25 and 26, part of a four-movie series of BTS concerts.

BTS cemented their global status with their first Billboard Music Award win, and their meteoric rise is powerfully captured in . Individual and unit performances reveal a spectrum of charms through velvety vocals and poetic rap, while the electrifying performances of “Blood Sweat & Tears,” “DNA,” and “MIC Drop” showcase the tour’s expanded scale! A pivotal chapter in BTS’s journey unfolds vividly on screen.

It plays locally at the Cinemark theaters in McCandless, Monroeville, and Robinson, and tickets are available online.

Hong Kong film A Better Tomorrow (英雄本色) in Pittsburgh, September 27 - October 2; A Better Tomorrow 2 (英雄本色2) here September 28, intersecting SCREENSHOT: Asia Film Fest and Hong Kong Classics series.

The Hong Kong films A Better Tomorrow (英雄本色) and A Better Tomorrow 2 (英雄本色2) will play in Pittsburgh this weekend, part of the Hong Kong Cinema Classics series at Harris Theater. 

A Better Tomorrow (英雄本色) plays in Pittsburgh September 27 through October 2, with the opening screening coinciding with the SCREENSHOT: Asia Film Festival, for which Pitt students, faculty, and staff may receive free tickets.

2025 Thai film A Useful Ghost (ผีใช้ได้ค่ะ) in Pittsburgh, September 26, part of SCREENSHOT: Asia Film Festival.

The 2025 Thai film A Useful Ghost (ผีใช้ได้ค่ะ) will play in Pittsburgh on September 26, part of the SCREENSHOT: Asia Film Festival.

At the beginning of the Cannes Film Festival Critics’ Week winner A Useful Ghost (Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, 2025), we learn that March (Wisarut Himmarat) has lost his beloved wife Nat (Davika Hoorne), whose work in the family factory has left her—and many other workers—poisoned. Their relationship gets a second chance, however, when she comes back to him, reincarnated as a vacuum cleaner. His family is less pleased by her reincarnation and finds their rather unconventional love disturbing. Anxious to be the good daughter-in-law again, Nat decides to become useful by setting herself against the other ghosts who have revenge on their minds. As she becomes involved in banishing other spirits, the question of a ghost’s usefulness clashes with Thailand’s recent authoritarian history. With its tonal shifts and fractious genre changes, A Useful Ghost should not work. But the fact that it does—and does so brilliantly—is a credit to the debut film director’s sense of humor and razor-sharp political vision.  

Toronto International Film Festival 2025, Cannes Critics’ Week Grand Prize 2025

Content warning: Nudity, Sexual Scenarios, Violence

Tickets are free for those with a Pitt ID card---registration and promo code required---and $11 for everyone else. The movie begins at 7:00 pm at the Harris Theaer in downtown's Cultural District (map).