“Being told you’re bad is painful. But ultimately, that’s kind of what I needed to just stop going the way I was going.”

Caught by the Tides is composed of improvisational footage that Jia has been shooting across China with his troupe of longtime collaborators over the last two decades.

The former president’s legal team slapped the movie with cease-and-desist letter shortly after its Cannes premiere but has remained quiet about the film before its U.S. release date, just weeks before the election.