2020-03-09

SIFF World Express | Five Chinese Films Debut at Dublin International Film Festival

The Dublin International Film Festival (DIFF) 2020 kicked off on February 26. Five Chinese films recommended by the Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF): SEND ME TO THE CLOUDS, SPRING TIDE, THE SOUND OF DALI, FLOWERS OF SHANGHAI, and IF YOU ARE HAPPY are screened during the event.

Founded in 2003, DIFF is an annual film event held in Ireland. Throughout its development spanning 17 years, more than 2,000 outstanding films around the world have joined the festival.

Dublin International Film Festival 2020

In 2020, SIFF World Express continues its global tour to present the Chinese society with outstanding Chinese films. This time the five films recommended to DIFF are quite diverse in styles: SPRING TIDE won the Golden Goblet Award for Best Cinematography at the 22nd SIFF; THE SOUND OF DALI was a nominee for the Golden Goblet Award – Best Documentary at the 22nd SIFF; SEND ME TO THE CLOUDS was nominated for 22nd SIFF Asian New Talent Awards for both Best Film and Best Director; IF YOU ARE HAPPY was shortlisted at the 2018 SIFF Project as a work-in-progress project, and was also specially screened in SIFF’s panorama unit Refreshing Chinese Cinema. Unlike the four new releases, FLOWERS OF SHANGHAI released in 1998 is already a well-known film in China. In 2019, this work by Hsiao-hsien HOU successfully went through the 4K restoration initiated by SIFF and Jaeger-LeCoultre. The revived film received a warm response from the audience during the screening at SIFF.

Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, HAO Lei, leading actress in SPRING TIDE, and TENG Congcong, director of SEND ME TO THE CLOUDS, failed to meet the audience in Ireland and watch the movies with them as scheduled. But the two showed up in specially made videos to greet and thank the local viewers.

Movie Introduction

SPRING TIDE
Directed by YANG Lina

GOU Jianbo is a journalist specializing in social news. Many reports she covered brought her a lot of pain and agony. She lives together with her mother and daughter. The family ties that bind the three together seem normal – yet are breeding collision. GUO’s mother is warm and friendly to all the residents, but becomes a totally different person at home. GUO’s daughter, though young, has already learned the rules of survival in the adult world. Each rebellion returns to peace in forbearance. A silent war breeds quietly among the three generations, inevitably transforming into a confrontation.

THE SOUND OF DALI
Directed by ZHANG Yang

THE SOUND OF DALI is a symphony that perfectly presents Dali\'s sounds. Using the concepts of sound, the director tries to build up a relation between sounds and images. Instead of concrete characters, the film shed light upon how people and nature get along in this environment. In Dali, throughout all seasons, the animals, plants and the beautiful scenery come together and produce the most enthralling symphony of nature.

SEND ME TO THE CLOUDS
Directed by TENG Congcong

The 30-ish female reporter SHENG Nan is proud and arrogant. She longs for true love, but is still alone; she is ambitious, but the reality is often frustrating. After being diagnosed with cancer, she starts to seek financial reward and has to accept a job she does not like – to write an autobiography for the father of an entrepreneur. Therefore she steps on a journey to find herself as well. The film imposes the blame and pressure faced by modern women on a character, allowing viewers to get a glimpse of the living plight of urban females.

FLOWERS OF SHANGHAI
Directed by Hsiao-hsien HOU

Eileen CHANG translated and noted the novel The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai by the Qing Dynasty writer Han Bangqing in Wu dialect. This film is based on the Mandarin version translated by CHANG, and has retained a large amount of dialogue in Wu dialect. In four elegant brothels, called "Flower Houses", in fin-de-siècle 19th-century Shanghai, a scroll depicting the Chinese society in the late Qing dynasty unfolds. WANG\'s entanglement between the two popular courtesans Crimson and Jasmin; the sophisticated relation between Jade and Hong; Phoenix’s liberation from the brothel with the help of LUO... the film is rendered diverse in perspectives and incredibly beautiful.

IF YOU ARE HAPPY
Directed by CHEN Xiaoming

FU Zhong, an associate professor at a university, is told that an apartment located near top primary schools in the city center is open for sales, priced at RMB 3.6 million. FU was relocated to the suburbs when he was young, so to win the best education resources for his young daughter, he decides to try his best to get the apartment. Although he only has 3 million at hand, he manages to sign the contract first, and agrees with the apartment owner to pay a 100,000-deposit first, and the rest in a week. By chance, he learns that his part-time cleaner NIU is in a hurry to buy a marriage house for her son, and has more than 600,000 in cash. So FU signs a contract with NIU to sell his only house at a low price in order to get the first payment of 600,000 as soon as possible. After collecting enough money, FU rushes to complete the transaction, but the apartment owner suddenly raises the price. FU is thus trapped in the dilemma between breaking the contract with NIU and keeping his promise.

“SIFF World Express” is a “Going Global” project started by SIFF in 2015. Utilizing its platform advantages as the Category-A international film festival, SIFF carefully selects outstanding movies for competition and movie panorama, sends outstanding Chinese movies to more international film festivals, and promotes their overseas distribution. Meanwhile, it strongly supports shortlisted “SIFF Projects” to enter the international film market, and facilitates their co-production negotiation and overseas pre-sales. Running for more than four years since its launch, the SIFF World Express has come to Japan, Italy, Indonesia, the UK and many other countries together with over 40 outstanding Chinese movies or projects.