2020-07-30

Asian New Talent Award Official Selection | Model

Model, an official selection for Asian New Talent Award of the 23rd Shanghai International Film Festival, was screened today. Director Jing Ran, and leading roles Shang Yuxian, Wang Yanhui and Lin Jingzhe attended the meeting after the film panorama. Model tells the story that Shi Lu, an international student, has experienced a series of visa and job crises in the United States, but unexpectedly found comfort in Kedi, her half-brother, making her have to face the choice between family and personal dream.

Jing Ran said that the film is named from "Being Settled and Rooted", and the word "root" has a profound meaning. When Shi Lu, the protagonist, is studying in the United States, her divorced father remarried quietly in China, and has shifted his focus of life to his new wife and newborn son. Thus, she and her father grew apart. Having scarred by the desiring but not obtained family love, Shi Lu tried to find a sense of presence and belonging at work. Jing Ran said that "root seeking" might be an emotional appeal for every Chinese drifting in another country, and she hoped that this film would also resonate with all the viewers living overseas.

Wang Yanhui, who plays her father in this film, is the "favorite" of the 23rd SIFF, during which a total of his three works are released, and more coincidentally, he plays the father of the leading role in both Model and Back To The Wharf, which seems to be a coincidence, but also a reason. Wang Yanhui said, "It was after I become a father myself that I\'ve really understood the meaning of father\'s love is as great as a mountain and felt the greatness of a \'father\', so I want to play all kinds of fathers." However, he said that every father is different, but the emotions of being a father will never change.

He was impressed by his first cooperation with Jing Ran, "This is the first film by Jing Ran, I don\'t care how good her techniques are, I think her heart is pure, and only such an attitude can create good works."

This film is the feature film debut written and directed by Jing Ran, combined with her own experience. Jing Ran revealed that before deciding to prepare this works, she had studied and worked in the United States for nearly ten years; hence, she had a very intuitive and perceptual knowledge of the living conditions of international students in the United States and the conflicts caused by the cultural differences between the East and the West, which eventually became the scenes in her lens. “I think the films are made certainly in the hope of connecting with the viewers and reaching their empathy points, which are actually interlinked, including many emotions in this film are what I met in my life, and some of the people around. In fact, some subordinate roles do have the prototypes. In my opinion, life experience is indispensable to the creation of films. Life experience is an input process, and the creation an export process.”