Please note that the streets surrounding BAM/PFA will be closed between 6 a.m. and 5 p.m. for the UC Berkeley Road Race Weekend.

Tamed and packaged on greeting cards and calendars, beauty is often so banal it's invisible. But this omnibus of four short films, each by an acclaimed Asian director, wrests moments of rapture from unexpected places. In You Are More Than Beautiful (Kim Tae-yong, Late Autumn), a taciturn young man hires an actress to pretend to be his fiancée in order to satisfy his dying father. As the fiction spins out of control, a cathartic truth comes to light. For Walker, Tsai Ming-Liang (Goodbye, Dragon Inn) followed a scarlet-robed monk through the bustling streets of Hong Kong. With deliberate, incredibly slow steps, the monk's infinitesimal progress not only contrasts with the harried pace of modern life, but provides a surreal meditation on the simple pleasures of movement.

The enigmatic Long Tou (Gu Changwei, Peacock) focuses on three people discussing the vicissitudes of time, life, and death as everyday events unfold around them with uncanny symbolism. Finally, in My Way, Ann Hui (A Simple Life) presents a tender portrait of a transsexual woman about to undergo sex change surgery. From frank discussions of the procedure to poignant flashbacks of her life as a man, My Way is a moving testament to courage and an exhortation to follow one's joy.

A first-time collaboration between the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society and Youku, China's leading Internet television company, Beautiful 2012 is a refreshing reminder that beauty can still seize us unawares.