Planet B602

Director: ZHANG Tianyu | 4 min

Synopsis Statement

The lockdown in London happened in 2020. The pandemic shifts a room into a planet. On planet B602, people wander around and live there peacefully, but the inner goal of people on that planet is always to explore outer space like the people on earth.

Director's Statement

Documentary Filmmaker, Screenwriter, and Film Director. Graduated from University College London with a master's degree in Ethnographic Documentary Film. I hope to make more films, and these films would capture more fresh moments of life.

Bright Summer Day

Director: Zhou Baiyu | 4min57sec

Synopsis Statement

A student in senior year suffers from time sickness due to the high-pressure environment, in which the time figures constantly appear in her mind. She wants to control every single minute to ensure time will not be wasted, and what follows are bulimia and depression. By chance, she has found a way to save herself.

Director's Statement

Zhou Baiyu is a 20-year-old girl studying at the Communication University of China.

Off the Wall

Director: Zhang Zhongchen | 5min10sec

Synopsis Statement

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Xiao Yu who studies in a sports school hasn’t seen his parents for a year. Knowing that his father who is a truck driver will drive through the Southern Expressway of their city, he decides to climb over the school wall…

Director's Statement

Zhang Zhongchen, a director, screenwriter, and film editor, was born in Suzhou of Anhui Province in 1991. His representative editing works include Mama, One Man Funeral, and Drop Your Cat. In 2021, he made his directorial debut with the film The White Cow.

Room 801

Director: Wang Shenqi | 2min

Synopsis Statement

One ordinary afternoon, the roommates are having a casual conversation. How am I going to shoot tomorrow’s assignment? Forget about it now, I am just a silly girl who gets happy whenever I hear her sound.

Director's Statement

Wang Shenqi, a female, from Tianjin, graduated from the Beijing Film Academy (BFA) in 2020 with an undergraduate degree in Photography. In 2021, she returns to BFA, and she is now a student who hopes to successfully obtain her MFA degree. She used a lot of apertures in shooting this short film.

Daydream

Director: Wang Kexin | 4min59sec

Synopsis Statement

This film originated from an actual interview. In our interview, we recorded many hilarious dreams that are absurd, illogical, bizarre, and elusive, and that is precisely why they are so fascinating. In dreams, there is no clear boundary between truth and lies, between everyday life and farce. The consciousness is pulled and enlarged by dreams, growing into concrete entities. Circumstances, identities, and consciousness are dislocated, where dreams and reality become the inside and outside of the distorting mirror. They are completely different but follow closely with one another. The film collects the whimsical dreams told by these interesting souls and presents them in animation while excluding some stop-motion scenes. All the hand-drawn animation scenes come from real images, which aim to reflect the fascinating contrast and charming weirdness.

Director's Statement

Wang Kexin, who graduated from Communication University of China, is good at and passionate about creating works with funny themes. “The laughter of the audience is the best compliment for me.”

Dive In!

Director: Zhang Xiaosha | 4min37sec

Synopsis Statement

This is a short story about a Wuhan uncle, nicknamed “Top Banana,” who meets up with his mates to go swimming again after his recovery from COVID-19.

Director's Statement

The director is a non-picky movie fan with major works including E.T. made in China and Mahjong Mom.

JIA QIAO

Director: Yang Yifu | 5min9sec

Synopsis Statement

The idea of this piece begins in early 2022, when the image of a bird feeder accidentally injects a warm tone into the winter doldrums of a small northeastern town, and thus thoughts and narratives about migratory birds and resident birds, sons and fathers, wanderers and home, expectations and care unfold.

Director's Statement

Yang Yifu, male, is an animation major who has worked as a director of animated films and commercials. After returning home, he became a teacher of video and film technology at Yingkou Modern Service School, and his directorial work "Home Bird" won the special recommendation honor from the organizing committee of the super short film section of the 16th FIRST Youth Film Festival.

How to Break a Girl’s Sense of Security in One Second

Director: Xia Zhongyan Lin Jinyu | 4min

Synopsis Statement

One night, when a girl is riding the subway, she receives a picture with a question asking “which station are you getting off at,” which makes her recall the experience of being followed. After being followed once, girls will be strongly alert to ensure their safety, whether they are at home or outside. It will also lead to thoughts about women’s safety. The picture that is mistakenly passed to her on the subway also creates some impacts on the girl…

Director's Statement

Xia Zhongyan, a female, was born in 1996 in Dongguan of Guangdong. She graduated from Guangzhou University with a degree in animation. She joined WhatYouNeed in 2021, and she has been working as a video director/photographer/video editor since then. During her career, she and her scriptwriter cum actress partner, Lin Jinyu co-created the short film series The Urban Good Guy—Lin Smart. This film, How to Break a Girl’s Sense of Security in One Second, is the representative work of the series. With the consistent observations from the female perspective and the empathy with the smallest details, the directors would like to voice out a little for women at the junction of light and darkness.

Lin Jinyu, a female, is learning to tell stories, and she is from the youth media platform, WhatYouNeed. Since 2020, she has formed a two-person team with Xia Zhongyan, the executive director. They observe everyday life through a unique female perspective and transform the resonating emotions into a rich visual language, exploring more possibilities of visual expression.

401

Director: Wang Yuchen Cai Yazhen | 4min58sec

Synopsis Statement

The nucleic acid sampling was about to start, and the man left the room. She knew that this morning, she had a chance to be free.

Director's Statement

Wang Yuchen, studying Photography and Production of Film and Television at NUA, was shortlisted for the Best Chinese Student Film at the 12th CSFF for his short film Green Fish.

Cai Yazhen, a law student at ECUPL, is an independent screenwriter.

My Mom’s 6 Jokes

Director: Chen Youxue | 3min57sec

Synopsis Statement

In the Chinese New Year of 2022, my parents working in Xi’an and I gathered at my grandfather’s house. We have not seen each other for two years. So, I picked up my camera while chatting with my mother and recorded six interesting “jokes” from her.

Director's Statement

Chen Youxue has started to make independent short films in various styles since 2015. After a life change and being inspired by the film Werk ohne Autor in 2019, he finally found his lifelong creative theme: the intergenerational relationship in the family motif. Besides, he insists on promoting the concept that “everyone is the director of the family.”

In the Light

Director: Wang Ruoyu | 4min58sec

Synopsis Statement

A boy’s gender identity and his growth environment are mutually exclusive. He is trying to find a balance between philosophy, religion, and science to clarify the choice of his future and explore her self-consistent possibilities. Relying on the fragmented pieces recorded using a mobile phone, the film attempts to combine documentary interviews with experimental images to create an audiovisual metaphor, as well as to present the boy’s self-reported spiritual journey.

Director's Statement

Wang Ruoyu, documentary filmmaker, graduated from Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology with a bachelor’s degree, majoring in Digital Media Arts. Now, she is pursuing the MFA Documentary filmmaking program at the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts of Chapman University. In 2019, she participated in the documentary series Lotus in Bloom on the 20th anniversary of Macau's handover. Her present works focus on the minority groups in society.

Pet Paradise

Director: Zhang Yejiao | 5min9sec

Synopsis Statement

There is a hospital that specializes in plastic surgery for animals. In this utopia, patients can be anything they want to be. Peggy is the earliest resident of the pet park. She helps doctors take care of other patients here: a snake who wants to grow eight feet, a mouse who does not want to be a mouse, an old parrot who cannot talk but only pluck its feather, a dog who accidentally turned into a celebrity after experiencing cyber violence, and a spotted rabbit who wants to bleach itself. Other animals do not know that Peggy, who is now slim, was a fat pig who could hardly walk a year ago. Actually, she suffers from severe bulimia due to body anxiety, but she never eats in front of anyone. Only in the late nights, does she look at her other self in the mirror, steal food from the refrigerator, and then continuously induce vomiting… There are unspeakable dark secrets in every ward, but can plastic surgery really turn their predicaments around?

Director's Statement

Zhang Yejiao, born in Xinmin of Liaoning Province, lives in Shanghai. He graduated from the School of English Studies, Shanghai International Studies University with a bachelor's degree and graduated from Bard College in the United States with a master's degree in photography under the ICP&bard MFA program. From 2018 to early 2021, he was a part-time lecturer at Mono No Aware, a film organization in Brooklyn, New York, USA, teaching courses using Super 8mm film and 16mm film. From 2018 to the present, he has been a lecturer on the art image and experimental films in “Emergency Break” workshop. In 2018, her photography work GUILAN was shortlisted for the Three Shadows Photography Award. In 2018, another photography work titled Her Own Room won the first prize of MAP Toulouse 2018, France. In 2021, the short film Calling the Flowers was shortlisted for the dynamic image award of the A.I.R. Biennale in New York.

Exhibition

Director: Runfeng Qiu | 4min

Synopsis Statement

Providence, Rhode Island. Juxtaposing imageries from a zoo, a specimen lab, an art museum, fragments of colonial histories overlap. The exhibits intertwine like memory devices.

Director's Statement

Runfeng Qiu currently majors in film/animation/video at Rhode Island School of Design.

Fluffy Ball

Director: Qian Ning | 5min

Synopsis Statement

Faced with a fluffy ball that spreads and multiplies like a virus, the girl tries her best to get rid of it and is forced to face her own heart.

Director's Statement

Qian Ning, born in Zhejiang Province in 1997, is studying in the Department of Film at NTUA, and he was selected for the 2020 Golden Horse Film Academy. His short film Monster Days was selected for the San Diego International Kids’ Film Festival, the Boston International Kids Film Festival in the United States, etc. He likes themes with mysterious and fantasy elements, trying to show things that deviate from common sense while highlighting a certain reality of the world.

Friendly Cooperation

Director: Kamoon | 4min58sec

Synopsis Statement

Why are Milkcake’s snacks disappearing so often? Chocolates, cherries, cornflakes… In its sleepy eyes, Milkcake discovers that an arrogant hamster is stealing its food! Goaded beyond endurance, Milkcake tries to attack the hamster but is always defeated. Finally, Milkcake plays its trump card—a grenade. When the hamster’s nest is blown into rubble, Milkcake is surprised to find that everything the hamster did turns out to make a proposal cake…

Director's Statement

Kamoon, who began to study at the Xie Jin Film & Television Art College in 2014, has shot many outstanding student productions during his school years and directed the first Sino-French co-production web drama titled French Cheat in 2017. He is good at controlling the pace and the emotion of films, and he is sensitive to visual elements. Since 2019, he has joined we-media with the account @奶糕成精档案社, and now he has 3m+ followers. With his pet Milkcake as the main character, Kamoon shoots films where Milkcake seems to live like a human.

Over the Mountains

Director: Dong Xingyi | 5min

Synopsis Statement

This film is about a small incident that happened to me when I was collecting cultural materials in Shaoguan, Guangdong Province. That day, I wrote it down in my diary. Every time I collect cultural materials, I like to rent a motorcycle or an electric bike to ride in the countryside. But this time, I underestimate the steep and rugged terrain of the Nanling Mountains, where it is too hard to ride an electric bike. Though I do not know why such an inconspicuous little thing has formed a memory, I believe there must be something that touches me without realizing it.

Director's Statement

Since childhood, I liked painting and wanted to be a painter. Later I was admitted to Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts. During college, I was inspired by films and determined to become a film director. In 2011, I graduated and came to Beijing. In 2016, I began to write scripts. In 2019, I shot my first film Slow Singing. Films are the most interesting thing I've ever found in my limited life.

The Lives of Youngsters Living in China 2020-2021

Director: Shen Yixin | 1min40sec

Synopsis Statement

The short film was inspired by Pietro Coppolecchia’s Beats, Rhymes & Life of Amsterdam Youth Culture which investigated how Amsterdam youths live in underground culture. From then on, I started to wonder how the cultural life of youngsters in China would be different. In the following two years, I recorded young people of different ages, industries, and regions around me with a digital camera. Ultimately, it came together in one experimental short film focusing on the Chinese young generation and presenting their different states of life.

Director's Statement

Shen Yixin, born in 1997, is a freelance artist based in Shanghai, China. She graduated from Huazhong University of Science and Technology majoring in Interactive Design. As an exchange student in her senior year, she went to Columbia University to study video production, from which she started to create personal works through experimental videos, documentaries, dynamic images and illustrations.

Everything is here

Director: Zhang Xingchen | 5 min

Synopsis Statement

This is a journey of young people back to their hometown, we don’t know why he wants to go home, the large number of empty seats at the high-speed rail station tells us that this is not a holiday, just a normal day, what is there to attract him in his hometown? Let him go home without even changing his clothes on his work days. The dome of the high-speed rail station reflected the noise and reminded him of the cicadas of summer. In the world of memory, time and logic become dispensable. Memory, dreams and reality blur the boundaries. He went back to his hometown in his mind. Even if there are no relatives there. Some have only a few graves. “Home” is always at his feet, but it is also a shore that can never be reached.

Director's Statement

Zhang Xingchen, born in 1998 in Fuyang, Anhui, graduated from Jiangxi Fashion Institute

Swim into Her Breath

Director: Liu Yixuan | 4min58sec

Synopsis Statement

It is said that human souls wander around the world, and they experience joys and sorrows, but they will not stay in one place. The film is based on the director’s childhood imagination of family members he had never met. With the first-person narration in the fish tank and the form of pseudo-documentary, the film shows that grandma is waiting at home on the eve of Chinese New Year. At the dopey and drowsy moment, a wandering soul lingers for a while.

Director's Statement

Liu Yixuan, a student at Central Academy of Fine Arts. As a creator with a background in architecture, he has long been concerned with films, architecture, cities, and related topics such as the society of spectacle and spatial narrative. Space, image, and video are his main media for creation.

Tony the Barber

Director: David Shieh Dustin Shieh | 3min11sec

Synopsis Statement

This is an interesting haircut story of the hairdresser, Mr. Tony.

Director's Statement

David Shieh, Engaged in the film and television industry for 6 years, Before 2019, I mainly participated in the special effects production of some low-cost Internet universities. Participating works include "Mecha Republic", "Chinese Soldier King", "Mercenary War 2" and so on. In 2019, Shenzhen Topstar Culture Media Co., Ltd. was founded, Started making self-media videos as a director.

Dustin Shieh, after dropping out of college, followed his brother David Shieh's footsteps into the film and television industry. In 2019, with his elder brother David Shieh and two other partners, he founded the BiliBili self-media channel of "Startizan", and continued to do things for the film and television industry in the form of short videos. contribute.

The Moment the Sleeper Knows He is Dreaming

Director: Wu Jiawen | 4min14sec

Synopsis Statement

This video poetry is dedicated to shift workers with sleep disorders. Through performative installations, the film recreates the lingering state of insomnia and the technical management of the sleepy or excited body. The film is also related to the pursuit of continuous self-optimization. The body is not directly exposed to the camera of the film but is concealed by the metaphor of the object. When the body is constructed as a place of power relations for science and technology, medical and healthcare, or productive labor, and when the subjectivity is lost in the technical control of biopolitics, how can we achieve the balance between ethics of the body with biological capital?

Director's Statement

Wu Jiawen was born in Guangdong in 1996. In 2019, he graduated from the School of Experimental Art, Central Academy of Fine Arts with a bachelor’s degree in Social Art. In 2022, he graduated from the School of Experimental Art, Central Academy of Fine Arts with a master’s degree in Total Art and Crossover study. He is now working and living in Beijing. Being raised in a labor-intensive industrial area known as the “capital of men's shoes,” Wu Jiawen has long been concerned with the issues related to technology, productive labor, and power relations in body ownership. His artworks include installations, photography, and dynamic images. With the habit of sleeping late since childhood, he always includes the low-light night visual quality in his works.