Shanghai, China c.1937

Ordinary life in extraordinary times - these ex-pats' home-movie snapshots of Shanghai capture the city on the brink of Japanese invasion.

These home-movie snapshots of ordinary ex-pat life in Shanghai are an intriguing record of an unnamed 'Shanghailander' family in a city on the brink of Japanese invasion. The film captures everyday life - a wedding, a hunt on horseback, garden relaxation - until the second half, which charts the family's escape by ship to Burma. It was surely a bittersweet passage: their daughter is born at sea.