Premiere | New Directors, New Works, New Techniques, New Perspectives

The Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF) has always been a high-quality stage for showing new films. Two film lists have been released for this year's premiere. The last film list is released today, including:

"Bipolar" starring the music talent Dou Jingtong’s; "The Knot" about the collapse of values following a car accident; "12x12 Untitled" about the professional crisis of cremation photographers; “Botox‎” a weird family drama; " The Lone Ume Tree" about the difficult survival of families with autism sufferers; "Beyond the Skies" by Professor Liu Zhihai of the Film, Television and Animation Art of the China Academy of Art; "Spaghetti Code Love" by the up-and-coming artist Takeshi Maruyama.

The following is the detailed introduction:

Bipolar

-2021-

Highlight: Spiritual Wandering of Shrimp Guardians

A girl from a rich family came to Lhasa on a trip alone. Coming across a "Colorful Shrimp" that was enshrined, she decided to change her itinerary and escort it back to the sea. Li Mengqiao’s self-written and directed feature film debut brings a spiritual adventure of finding oneself in the form of a ridiculous and humorous road film, which combines black and white and color images to add a sense of mystery. The first perspective of "God Shrimp" is adopted to explore the inner world of animals in a silent film. Through a series of adventures that fall into the girl’s dreams, memories and hallucinations, the mental state of the characters crushed and numb by modern life is revealed. Talented girls Dou Jingtong hit the screen for the first time and sang the theme song for the film.

The Knot

-2021-

Highlight: The collapse of values following a car accident

Shirish and Geeta, an upper middle class couple in Lucknow, run over a rickshaw driver with their car and get caught up with dramatically opposing reactions to the tragedy. Shirish attempts to move on, harnessing the invisible protections afforded to him by class structure, and hiding behind the visible walls and locked gates of his home. In parallel, Geeta's guilt drives her to surreptitiously employ Manoj, the victim’s younger brother, intertwining two lives otherwise separated by class and power. The small collision quickly turns into a dramatic suspense, spurred by greed, betrayal, guilt, and the nocuous effects of grave inequality threaten to unwind the very fabric of each of their lives. The film was selected as a work in progress project for the "Goes to Cannes" section of Marche Du Film at Cannes Film Festival in 2020. It premiered in the International Competition at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2021.

12x12 Untitled

-2021-

Highlights: The professional crisis of Indian cremation photographers

Varanasi (formerly known as Kashi) is a Hindu holy site, and there is one of the most sacred cremation sites in Manikarnika Ghat. Indian director Goraf Madan’s feature film debut tells that when this ancient historical and cultural city is in the tide of modernization, the lives of photographer Soraj, who took pictures of the dead to receive cremation, and his family and friends have to face the dilemma between the old and the new. The Indian wedding and funeral ceremonies with genuine folklore characteristics in the film are breathtaking, the old-fashioned scull boats and large cruise ships sail side by side on the Ganges, and SLR cameras are replaced by smartphones, letting people thinking about the future of the traditional cultural heritage.

Botox

-2020-

Highlights: The last resort of the Iranian sisters

The mentally retarded Akram and her younger brother and sister live on the outskirts of Tehran. They want to grow rich by growing hallucinogenic mushrooms, but the accident of the younger brother Emard left the two sisters in isolation. This film is the first feature film written and directed by the self-taught Iranian director Kawe Masahri. He takes a different approach from the perspective of disabled Iranian women and tells a weird family drama between comedy and thriller. The film uses blue-green tones to create an uneasy atmosphere, with a tense and suspenseful soundtrack throughout, and gradually shifts from reality to fiction, leaving an intriguing and open ending.

The Lone Ume Tree

-2021-

Highlights: The real life of autistic families

A Chung, who has mild cognitive impairment and autism, lives with his elderly mother. Because his behavior is different from ordinary people, he is regarded as troublesome by his neighbors and is rejected. After a new family of three moved in next door, the two families, originally keeping social distance, gradually began to interact with each other. Director Kotaro Wajima, who suffers from epilepsy, wrote this touching story with tears in laughter with his own experience and feelings, arousing the attention and care of the disabled and disadvantaged groups in society.

Beyond the Skies

-2021-

Highlights: A soldier's 48-hour life and death decision

In 1935, the Red Army received an order to blow up the KuoMinTang’s ammunition depot within 48 hours. Captain Hong Qichen, who had just experienced combat setbacks, embarked on the journey alone. Professor Liu Zhihai of the School of Film, Television and Animation Art of the China Academy of Art led the poetic film innovation team of the Academy to shoot a feature film debut, breaking the theme and narrative mode of traditional war films, blending the characters in the landscape. The war experience and growth mood of an ordinary soldier is depicted in black and white naturally, to explore philosophical issues related to life and death under war through ethereal long shots, and cleverly show the character's inner choice of life and death via the change of tones.

Spaghetti Code Love

-2021-

Highlights: Feature film created by an emerging film artist

Video writer Takeshi Maruyama has not had a new film after his debut feature film "Snail" met the public in 2004, but he has always been active in creation. He has filmed MVs for many well-known singers and actors, and directed the documentary of the girl group Nogizaka 46. When "Long Day's Journey Into Night" was screened in Japan, he had an in-depth conversation with director Bi Gan who liked his MV. This film is Maruyama’s second feature-length feature film in nearly 20 years. It vividly depicts the various men and women in Tokyo, regardless of status, position, and class. They all have their own pains, but there are still some hopes in their lives. Perennial front-line shooting has given Maruyama a very keen aesthetic pursuit, with fashionable and avant-garde audiovisual language and eclectic group narrative, to bring audiences a unique viewing experience.

Keep tuned to get the blockbuster film list of the 24th Shanghai International Film Festival in 2021 as soon as possible.

Note: In case of changes in the film list, the actual schedule shall prevail.