Media Award

In the spring of 1924, when the girl YANG Zhihua entered the Shanghai University, the 25 year old QU Qiubai was teaching as a professor of the Department of Sociology at this school, who was also one of the prominent leaders of the Chinese Communist Party during the early stage. QU made full use of his teachings to spread the thoughts on revolution, lighting up the young students’ patriotism and deeply moving Yang Zhihua. Their love developed in the struggle of the revolution.

In the year 1935, QU got arrested. Facing a series of induction to capitulate, he did not hesitate to insist on being loyal to his revolutionist ideals. When YANG Zhihua tried to save him, General QIANG Kaishek gave an order for Qu’s execution. QU sang the Internationale when he was executed for championing a just cause. Perhaps he did manage to practise his promise and ideals with his life.

THE PIANO IN A FACTORY

It\'s the early 1990s and the working class, which had long been the foundation of the nation, was facing serious everyday challenges as money-losing state-owned factories shut down. Unemployment and uncertainty swept through China\'s industrial northeast. Through the story of CHEN’s incredible scheme of making a piano from scratch for his daughter, the movie gives us a glimpse into the living conditions of China’s poorer working class, and their psychological and spiritual trials during that tumultuous time. The piano project brings the workers back together and into the factory life they sorely missed. It fills a void in their hearts by giving them joy in contributing their physical skills, and a sense of accomplishment in fulfilling something bigger than life. In particular, the film highlights the workers’ perseverance and suppressed romantic spirits despite their day-to-day hardships. The blasting of the chimneystacks symbolizes the end of a bygone era, a sad but inevitable product of economic transformation. 

Though they have to yield to the harsh reality in the end, the factory misfits with few resources muster their strengths and ingenuity to create the most extraordinary music in life.

THE DEVIL INSIDE ME

After a heart transplant surgery, LIN Yan found that the heart is going to make her into a different person. Lin Yan asks her doctor JIANG Mu for help, but JIANG Mu puts all these strange things come down to psychological pressure after transplant. Lin Yan found her heart provider’s boyfriend, who names MA Benke. MA told LIN about the death of JIANG Beiyan, the heart provider, who killed herself.

Women in the mirror, deep asphyxia, lingering woman’s voice, uncertain movie of something and the midnight knock on the door so frequently exacerbate the nightmare of LIN…

But the real truth is far more than that. How LIN Yan will choose? And why is Ma dying?

ONE WRONG STEP

Rain, unmarried and in her 3 month pregnancy, fell into a pit at a construction site and lost her child. A courageous lawyer SHU Nan helped her sue the real estate company. The lawsuit got great victory, and SHU Nan earned a good reputation. Attracted to Rain, SHU Nan took very good care of her. To his surprise, he found out that Rain had a secretive and inextricable link to the real estate company. After further investigations, he suspected that Rain‘s miscarriage was a carefully planned accident, and the mastermind was MENG Lei, the managing director of that real estate company. As Shu Nan dug deeper into the truth, he unknowingly became part of a bigger plot that would cost his life…

MEMORY OF LOVE

Li Xun, a doctor, absolutely does not expect to work this morning, hitting the first surgery. Chun Xu, a strange man and his wife are in the car accident, in the treatment process. Li Xun is shocked that the strange man named Chen Kun is his wife\'s lover, he refrains distressed, and their colleagues, former boyfriend of XU Chen save their lives from the operating table, but XU Chun is amnesia because of the wound of head Department.

The most difficult and cruel thing is to choose whether to resume XU Chun\'s memory or not. If he does, XU Chun may betray him again. If not, he will be on the contrary to the professional ethics of doctor and the conscience of husband...

A DISAPPEARING VILLAGE

Yuncao, a village girl, hurries to the city early in the morning with a shocking message that Old LV was killed by chicken thieves last night. Astounded and grieved, the old peasant’s two sons, LV Guo and LV Shan, lead a group of fellow migrant workers from the same village to return for the burial. To their great surprise, the old man is still alive. In an effort to catch the thieves that have been harassing the village, LV Shan discovers that things are more complicated than he has expected. It turns out that all of this mystery can be traced back to his father, who has been acting weirdly. 

The story centers, in a word, around the old peasants left in the empty nests. The younger generation is lured away by the city life, and the Chinese rural communities are rapidly disappearing.

TO MY WIFE

The movie was based on two letters written by one of the "Huanghuagang 72 Martyrs" – Mr. LIN Chuehmin, which were written respectively to his dear wife and respected father.

The movie describes the revolutionary activities Chueh-Min engaged in from 1905 to 1911, combining the events happening in the last three days of Guangzhou Uprising and focusing on demonstrating the spirit of patriotism of Chuehmin.

THE YOUNG MAN SINGS FOLK SONG IN THE OPPOSITE DOOR (China, 2011, 105’)

Directed by ZHANG Ming

Synopsis:

LIU Xiaoyang is fond of music. In order to help Xiaoyang enter a music school, her father, who is serving in the police station, finds FENG Gang as a tutor. Xiaoyang and FENG Gang gradually cultivate feelings in the process of learning. A few years later, Xiayang returns to her homeland after graduation.

ZHANG Xuefeng and Xiaoyang grow up together. Their parents want them to be together. But Xiaoyang rejects. She has an acrimonious quarrel with her father. One day, LIU Zaishui lets Xiaoyang send ZHANG Xuefeng to the dormitory. In the dormitory, they drink together for their separation. But she finds that they are on the same bed the next day. He intends to kiss her but she bites his tongue. She flees away from the dormitory and goes with FENG Gang. Xiaoyang finds the affair between FENG Gang and his cousin who stays with him after his mother’s death.

On the train heading for the distant, FENG Gang’s cousin is sitting beside him and he is writing his longing for Xiaoyang…

Director’s CV:

He got his master’s from the directing department of Beijing Film Academy in 1991, and has been MA supervisor there from then on. His film RAIN CLOUDS OVER WUSHAN (also known as IN EXPECTATION) won him international honors, including New Currents Award from the Pusan International Film Festival 1995, Dragons and Tigers Award from the Vancouver International Film Festival in 1997, FIPRESCI prize at the Torino Film Festival, as well as the Best Feature Film award.

MR.TREE (China, 2011, 91’)

Directed by HAN Jie

Synopsis:

Shu, a bachelor, is a not-very-reliable worker in the village\'s motor-repair shop. The friends he grew up with have followed very different paths. Er Zhu has taken over the village mine and launched his own Mining Group to operate it. Yixin has opened a tutorial school in the faraway provincial capital. And others are still villagers. When he gets together with his friends, Shu tends to stay silent, like a tree forgotten in the wilderness, unless the others start laughing at him.

The operations of the new mining cause subsidence in the village. The evacuation of villagers to new apartments in the county town begins. Shu instead takes off for the provincial capital to ask Yixin for a job. He does odd jobs in the school and finds that watching the pupils reminds him of his own childhood. Shu lost both his stern father and his beloved elder brother when he was a child. His father often appears in his dreams, but (to his regret) his elder brother doesn\'t.

Shu fell in love at first sight with Xiaomei, a deaf-mute girl. On the night before the wedding, Shu\'s elder brother at last appears in his dream. But the wedding is a disaster, and Xiaomei soon leaves to rejoin her mother.

The worries and intuitions which have long flashed through Shu\'s mind start to make sense to him. He begins to make prophecies, and many of them come true. Suddenly Shu becomes a respected prophet, addressed by everyone as "Mr Shu".

Everyone has moved to the town. Only Shu embraces a tree in the deserted village. Suddenly his estranged bride Xiaomei back and speaks for the first time: "Let\'s go home."

Director’s CV:

Han Jie graduated from the Film and TV Production Department of Beijing Normal University in 2002. In 2006, his first feature WALKING ON THE WILD SIDE won the Tiger Award (best film) of International Film Festival Rotterdam and Silver Digital Award of Hong Kong Int\'l Film Festival. In 2008, he was invited by Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona and directed the short film BEING & NOTHINGNESS.