Participants & Projects
FROM AUSTRALIA
SON OF A GUN
by Elizabeth Tadic & Selene Alcock, Shoot Me Pictures
Criminal or Saint? Keith McHenry’s mission to end hunger and war turns him into an enemy of the American state. Descended from a long line of warmongers, he starts the Food Not Bombs movement – collecting discarded food and serving it to the needy. But U.S. authorities crack down on the movement and Keith ends up in jail. SON OF A GUN questions what kind of world makes feeding the hungry a crime.
FROM CHINA
THE SECRET OF THE ROASTED PIGEON
by Sarah Zheng, Grand Entertainment
The Secret of THE Roasted Pigeon is a film about the way culinary skills and heritage is passed along in China for thousands of years. The master here possess a famous recipe for making roasted pigeon and he’d had happily passed it along to his son had his son had any interest at all. Meanwhile, his apprentice, boss and wife have been planning on acquiring the recipe…The master is at loss right now…
THE WELL-BEING AREA OF ELDERLY
by Fu Chen, Zheng Tao & J.T. (Jiajun Yu), TVC
Hundreds of uncles and aunts sit around every day, seeking for marriage and interest in sex. The elderly marriage in China is dishonourable, let alone pursuit of a sex life, which is seen as abnormal. So they are sneaky. However, in the central area of Chongqing, the largest municipality of China, all has been playing blatantly for more than seven years. Marriage is considered as happiness in China, while sex life is jokingly called happiness of sex by the young. Both pronounced the same in Chinese.
SONG OF THE MULBERRIES
by Shan Zuolong & Richard Liang, Peak & Galaxy Communications
Silk has become a declining industry. The chain of family silk workshops is developing into an unusual spectacle, besides an industrial and mechanized system of production line combining sericulture, filature, weaving, dyeing, tailoring, exportation and domestic selling, creating an economic miracle together with a high-speed running machine, China. In Donglin, a small town in Huzhou city, there are over 1000 silk family factories with nonstop dreams of weaving a better life.
I BELONG TO THE SECOND WEALTHY GENERATION
by Kevin Shen Weiwei & Alex Zhang
Wenyi Cinema & TV department, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
The Second Wealthy Generation refers to the offspring of the First Wealthy Generation – the first entrepreneurs of privately owned enterprises after China adopted its reform and openness policies. They become wealthy just by inheriting wealth. In the year of 2008, the financial storm swept the world, and many private businesses went bankruptcy. In the meantime, the Second Wealthy Generation, which have grown up after the open-door and reform policy, are also faced with the critical transition of power in the enterprises.
A CLASS OF THEIR OWN
by Haryun Kim
Guangzhou, modern day Canton, has been a prime destination for migrant workers – the main contributors to China’s dramatic economic growth. But under current law, residents without a local household registration - mostly these poor migrant workers - are excluded from basic social services such as healthcare and education. This film will follow the crucial final year of a group of migrant children at a privately-run primary school and portray their passion, struggles, frustration and dreams. And it will watch those children make life-changing decisions; whether to go back to their hometowns alone for further education, continue their studies in the city placing great financial burden on their parents, or become migrant worker themselves.
FROM EUROPE
THE ANGOLA PROJECT
by Jeremy Xido & Marlies Pucher, Filmwerkstatt / Cabula6
The Angolan and Chinese governments have made a deal to link all of Southern Africa via rail - transforming the region into a potent economic and cultural force while at the same time fuelling the rise of China as a preeminent 21st century world power. Both countries feel like this is possibly their moment in history and many of their dreams for the future hinge on this pragmatic relationship. But how does this play out in the lives of everyday people who have also pinned their private hopes for the future on this joint venture? THE ANGOLA PROJECT is a film about people making their lives in this vibrant almost surreal world surrounding the reconstruction of the Benguela Railway.
HALF THE SKY
by Karin Totterman & Simo Brotherus, Pain In The Real Productions
“Half the Sky” explores the status of women in China, a country rushing towards modernity without having undergone an independent feminist movement or stopped to question traditional gender stereotypes. Through four main characters, the film surveys femalehood in China via something all women can identify with – the pressures of being young, pretty, getting a job, and finding love.
SLUMDOG SPACEMEN
by Sue Sudbury & Gillian McCredie, Sequoia Films
India’s 1.7 billion pound space programme is controversial given the extreme levels of poverty in the country. Ironically, many of the people who work at the Space Centre live in the slums. After a recent storm, they had to wade through waist high flood waters to reach this multi million pound Centre. This film explores these two extremes.
GERMAN BEER FOR CHINA
by Michael Chauvistré & Niklas Bäumer, KOPPFILM GmbH
Rene and Helmut are two brothers from Aachen, a small city in Germany. Today they are working as master brewers in China where they cherish the “Reinheitsgebot” (German beer purity law). The film tells a story of success and acceptance in foreign lands but above all about searching a place to call home in a time of globalization.
ISLANDS OF HAPPINESS (formerly AO NUI - PARADISE LOST)
by Stephanie von Lukowicz & Abel Garcia, Polar Star Films
In 1929 F.W. Murnau and Robert Flaherty embarked on a trip to the island of Bora Bora in the South Pacific to follow in the footsteps of Robert L. Stevenson, the Scottish writer who, forty years earlier, had immortalized his journey to the Pacific in “In the South Seas”. The result of their collaboration is “Tabu”, a legendary motion picture that explores the enigmatic myth of Paradise Lost. AO NUI - Paradise Lost will contrast and compare the past and present reality of Murnau and Flaherty ́s film in order to evoke thoughts and emotions in the audience. It will follow in their footsteps and explore the legacy they left behind in the form of their film.
FROM KOREA
AVERAGE SUPERSTAR
by Wooyoung Choi & Sinae Ha
‘Average_ Superstar’ tells the story of two guys spreading affection to their neighbors. They look like ordinary people but have extraordinary super powers, which make the neighbors happy. This documentary film will be a journey into the heart and life of two men, Joseph Kwon, a mailman in Seattle, and Byunggi Jo, a delivery man in Andong, Korea. We redefine a word, ‘super star’, and make a new word ‘Average_Super star’, which means a personality spreading cheer with sweet affection.
FROM MALAYSIA
LOOKING FOR ENRIQUE
by Mohd Naguib Razak & Raja Ridzlan bin Raja Abdul Aziz
Blue In Green Productions
2011: A good half a millennium after Magellan first encountered him – soon after the fall of the Malaccan Empire in 1511 – a celebrated Malay sailor, Azhar Mansor, now embarks on a journey to discover the truth about his predecessor, Enrique de Malaca. After leaving his Malay shores in 1511, Enrique’s full story has never really emerged, and so Azhar wants to set the record straight once and for all, and hopefully finally welcome Enrique ‘home’ after five long centuries.
FROM SINGAPORE
FASHION BEHIND BARS
by Mak CK, The Moving Visuals Co.
What do fashion and a maximum security prison have in common? In Manila, a young award-winning fashion designer conducts free weekly workshops for murderers and rapists at a maximum security prison to create couture cocktail dresses, bags and belts. Their creations are sold in boutiques for hundreds of dollars and they make appearances at celebrity weddings and red carpet events. Fashion Behind Bars is a story about second chances, redemption and hope in an unexpected fashion.
