Also Directed by Nobuhiro Suwa
An aging movie actor who is preparing to shoot a death scene finds himself visited by the spirit of a dead, long-ago lover.
A Letter from Hiroshima explores themes of apology and remembrance. Suwa sends a letter to a Korean actress (Kim Ho-jung) he has worked with in the past requesting her assistance to write and direct a film about Hiroshima. Ho-jung arrives at her hotel and is told to explore the city and wait for Suwa. Initially confused, Ho-Jung soon finds the city mesmerizing and spends days learning about the tragic bombing and the effects that are still felt in the city today. With sparse dialogue and just a handful of characters, Suwa uses black and white images of Hiroshima to convey the scope of the tragedy. In one particularly poignant moment, the voice of a mother is heard lamenting the fact that she had scolded her daughter the day of the bombing. We next see Ho-jung crying in her hotel room, ignoring the ringing phone.
For the 30th anniversaire of FIDMarseille about thirty directors have done us the honor of offering us some very beautiful short films.
Hanasareru Gang actually encapsulates three titles in one, for when written without Kanji characters, it can describe a gang that is “on everyone’s lips”, “flowery” or “separated from one other”. The film plays with these different meanings to tell the not strictly chronological story of a fun-loving young woman who joins up with a pair of petty criminals. After they steal a car containing a suitcase full of bank notes, they must go their separate ways. When the characters comment on the action in voiceover, ask how much more time the film is going to give them, quote from “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” or suddenly jump back and forth between tragedy and slapstick in tune with the music, one might think that Pierrot le fou got lost and ended up in Japan.
A woman is waiting for a man. She deceives the man with her long hair hidden in a wig and jokes that she would go to Hiroshima.
When Yuki finds out that her parents are separating and she is moving to Japan with her mother, she and her best friend Nina devise ways to reunite the feuding adults.
Tetsuro is living with his young girlfriend Aki in a pleasant house in Tokyo. They both spend a lot of time at their jobs. However their routine is upset when Tetsuro brings his 8 year old son Shun to live with them, while his ex-wife recovers from a car accident. Aki is annoyed because she was not asked, and she knows that she will have to do the bulk of the work in caring for him. This forces Aki to reevaluate her relationship, and decide whether she is to remain a modern working woman, or become a mother.
Olivier Assayas, Gus Van Sant, Wes Craven and Alfonso Cuaron are among the 20 distinguished directors who contribute to this collection of 18 stories, each exploring a different aspect of Parisian life. The colourful characters in this drama include a pair of mimes, a husband trying to chose between his wife and his lover, and a married man who turns to a prostitute for advice.
A French couple has been living in Lisbon for years, and they return to Paris for a friend's wedding. They announce to another friend they are having dinner with that they are going to split.
Also Directed by Wang Xiaoshuai
A boy living with his grandmother in the mountains refuses to migrate in the new village. Everyday he prowls the cornfields and waits for his mother to come back.
Chinese short film directed by Wang Xiaoshuai.
The young adult life of Hong Yunsheng, nicknamed Little Brother, is seen as somewhat of a failure by those that know him. A Chinese national, he stowed away on a boat to the United States, where he worked as a dishwasher in the restaurant of a family from his hometown back in Fujian province. After two years in the States and after fathering an illegitimate child there named Fusheng, the child's mother Xuhui who is the restaurateur's daughter, he was deported back to China. Since, he has been floundering in life, which has caused a rift between himself and his older brother, who, with his wife, operate a street front diner and can't have children of their own. Little Brother relies on his new girlfriend, a woman he barely knows named Wu Ruifang who is a performer in a touring opera troupe, for emotional support. Despite Little Brother being the local poster boy for not stowing away, his friend named Monkey tried to do the same, but died on the voyage over due to exposure to toxic ..
Shot over the course of ten years on both film and video, the film consists of a series of carefully composed tableaux of people and environments. Pedestrians shuffle across a bustling Beijing street, steelworkers linger outside a deserted factory, tourists laugh and scamper across a crowded beach, worshippers kneel to pray in a remote village. With a painterly eye for composition, Wang captures China as he sees it, calling to a temporary halt a land in a constant state of change.
Chinese short film directed by Wang Xiaoshuai.
Short film directed by Wang Xiaoshuai
Two young farm workers, who like millions of others, leave their village to seek their fortunes in the city. Each chose a vastly different path to make it and become embroiled in misunderstandings, gangster brawls and police raids.
In the 1960s, encouraged by the government, a large number of families leave Chinese cities to settle in the poorer regions of the country, in order to develop local industry. The film's main character is a 19 year old girl who lives in the Guizhou province, where her parents have settled. That's where she has grown up, where her friends are and where she first experiences love. But her father believes that their future lies in Shanghai. How can they all keep on living together when they don't share the same dreams?
Chinese film directed by Wang Xiaoshuai.
Chinese short film directed by Wang Xiaoshuai.
