"No. 89 Shimen Road" director Shu Haolun

Congratulations to writer-director Shu Haolun, whose new film No. 89 Shimen Road just won the Best Asian Film Award (NETPAC Award) from 27th Warsaw International Film Festival.

In giving the award to Shu, the NETPAC jury commented on their decision:

The 27th WFF NETPAC Jury gives out the award to a film that poignantly depicts the struggle of a country confronted with a new order. It is also a personal and touching view of a world that no longer exist.

No. 89 Shimen Road is available through dGenerate Films. It will screen in Chicago next month as part of an 11-film series on Chinese independent cinema hosted by Doc Films.

Shu’s previous films Struggle and Nostalgia are also available through dGenerate.

Relevant Classroom Use

WHAT IS IT?

An international documentary development fund, offering 40 awards annually of up to 5,000 euros each.

This is a rapid response fund, providing resources in the early stages of documentary projects, to shoot and edit a film trailer. The fund is open to filmmakers of any nationality and grants will be awarded on a quarterly basis.

WHO CAN APPLY?

These awards are open to emerging and established filmmakers working anywhere in the world. We welcome one-off, creative documentary ideas of any length and subject, in any style and form, but we are particularly keen on ideas that speak to PUMA.Vision’s core values of Safe, Peace and Creative.

HOW LONG DO YOU HAVE?

The current call for applications is now open until August 15th 2011, with the awardees due to be announced in October 2011. Take a look at our Puma Catalyst Awards Film Directory to see previously funded developments.

SUBMISSIONS FOR THIS QUARTER WILL BE OPEN UNTIL 15TH AUGUST 2011 – APPLY HERE:BRITDOC.ORG/CATALYST

Relevant Classroom Use

Liu Jiayin is one of the youngest and most promising independent filmmakers in the Digital Video movement in China.  She made her first feature Oxhide, a dGenerate title, when she was twenty-three, and served as writer, director, cinematographer, as well as a character in the three-character film.  Boldly transforming documentary into fiction, Liu Jiayin cast her parents and herself as fictionalized versions of themselves in an intimate portrait of a father’s leather bag business and a family’s anxiety over its decline.  Daily life in an impossibly cramped Beijing apartment takes on epic proportions in this intimate portrait, with unprecedented access of a working-class Chinese family.  In an review on Cinema Scope, Shelly Kraicer praised the film as “the most important Chinese film of the past several years–and one of the most astonishing recent films from any country.”

Oxhide II, Liu’s second feature, is the sequel to Oxhide and continues to follow the fate of the same business and the same family.  Using real time in the shoot, the film takes place when the family gathers to make and eat dumplings, a quintessential family ritual in China.  In an interview with Fanhall Films, Liu Jiayin mentioned that in Oxhide II, she reduces the dramatic quality of Oxhide in order to present a “diluted” (xishi) life.

Launched in July 2007, CinDi aims at discovering, presenting and supporting a new generation of digital films and filmmakers in Asia.  Chinese-language films covered half of this year’s program.  Xu Tong’s documentary Wheat Harvest won the top Red Chamelon Award, for which the Chinese independent director Lou Ye (director of Suzhou River and Summer Palace) served in the jury.  Lou’s film Spring Fever was the opening night film of the festival.

Relevant Classroom Use