Category: 2019 Brisbane

Title: The Calling

Length: 70 minutes

Genre: psychological suspense feature.

Director: Charles Zhang (Zhang Yu), Jonathan Cui (Cui Quan)

Language: Mandarin

Subtitle: Chinese / English

Script: Cui Quan

Features: Experimental feature film for exploring the application of VR film language to the cinematic experience of the future.

Story: This film tells the story of a middle-aged real estate tycoon – Jianguo Wang – suffering from a dual personality disorder exacerbated by extreme work and private life pressures. One day, he receives a call from a stranger. The stranger is able to mysteriously control Wang’s car door from a distance. If Wang has a hope of opening the door, he must obey the stranger’s increasingly bizarre orders. Based on the stranger’s puzzling clues, Wang sees himself divorced from his beautiful but demanding wife Min, his lover Ling-Ling is murdered by a man donning a black coat in a hotel suite, and Wang’s Real Estate empire collapses around him. In tantalizing morsels, the stranger continues to reveal the things Wang has done in the past. Finally, the stranger gives him a pill and Wang falls into a coma. After several minutes, in a darkened room the mobile rings again. Wang is standing in an unlit room with a menacing grin – dialing himself …

Q/A Guest:

Director: Charles Zhang Co-Director/Producer: Jonathan Cui

Buy a Ticket →

Language: Mandarin

Subtitle: Chinese / English

Synopsis:

In Guizhou Province, China, a child who dies under the age of 14 is regarded as dying young, andcannot be buried in the family graveor be listed in the family tree. 5-year-old Haiwa, the only son of the protagonist Old Ho, is diagnosed with terminaldiseaseand will die soon. Old Ho doesn’t accept the fact that he won’t have any chance to visit his son’s grave; he, therefore, determines to donate all his son’s organs and carve his son’s name on thegravestone. However, Old Ho never expect it can be rather difficult to make organ donation.

Director’s Comments:

This film is based on real-life events. I take the film as a mirror to truthfully reflect the place where I live and the world that I cognise, as well as all the things I have heard and seen. My film is not aimed at moving people to tears or being a shot in the arm. Instead, it tries to describe objectively the true meaning of life, without appealing to the senses. This is also my original intention of making this film. Some scenes in the film would be sad but not that tearful, while they may leave the audience a heavy heart; some scenes would be hopeful but not that comfortable, while they could still warm the cockles of their heart.

Awards:

2019 GKCFF Best Director/Best Actor

Buy a Ticket →

Language: Mandarin

Subtitle: Chinese / English

Synopsis：

Inland China in the late 90s, there is a junior high school focusing on martial arts with high standards of discipline. Under the headmaster’s firm management, everyone tries their best to work and live in the stifling atmosphere.

There is a young boy called Cuishan who cannot fit into the school. He has no interest in martial arts and shows great academic talent. However, due to the school’s focus on martial arts, his talent leads to a very difficult life in the school. He, therefore, repeatedly tries to run way, but all ends in failure.

The arrival of a young Chinese teacher breaks the balance there. Upon getting used to it, the new teacher gradually understands and sympathises Cuishan, trying to make a change on his own strength.

Finally, all the people find something different in their life, with Cuishan seizing a good opportunity to ‘run away’. The teacher also accepts the reality, gains personal growth, and decides to pursue a different life.

Award：

• GKCFF 2019 Best Film of Golden Koala Award
• The 31st Tokyo International Film Festival The Spirit of Asia Award by the Japan Foundation Asia Center
• The 31st Tokyo International Film Festival Best Asian Future Film Award (nomination）

Q/A：

Director Huang Huang

Buy a Ticket →

Language: Mandarin

Subtitle: Chinese / English

Synopsis：

Hello Life is a documentary film about the real life of 15 people in 2017. Those people involved live in north and south of China, contains peddlers, the visual impaired, pub dancer, veteran, single mother, window cleaner, free-lancer, voluntary bike sharing maintainers, rickshaw puller, screw-seller, heart disease patient, forest ranger and so forth. Each of them makes great efforts to tough life while those efforts are exactly the light of life itself.

Buy a Ticket →

Language: Mandarin

Subtitle: Chinese / English

Synopsis：

Ah Qiang lives in the big city and struggles to take care of his mentally unstable mother and his 5-year-old sister, Hui Shan. When a speeding car kills Hui Shan in an accident, Ah Qiang is desperate to claim his sister’s body. Unfortunately, he can’t prove his relation with Hui as she was never registered at birth. Ah Qiang’s mother is no help given her condition. Ah Qiang is forced to face this predicament on his own.

Awards：

The 54th Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival

Best New Actor (Nominated): TAN Seng Kiat

The 20th SIFF (Shanghai International Film Festival) Asian New Talent Award

Award for Best Film: Shuttle Life（Malaysia）

The 1st PYIFF (Pingyao Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon International Film Festival)

People’s Choice Unit (Nominated): TAN Seng Kiat

Buy a Ticket →

Language: Mandarin

Subtitle: Chinese / English

Synopsis:

Mr.Big surname is Ye, and he goes by the single character “Yun”. He was born in Zhaowuda League in Inner Mongolia in 1970. Mr. Big now works in a local copper company. In his nearly ten years of life, except for the change of seasons, it seemed to be the same from beginning to end. Mr.Big has always had an idea, want to go to Tibet, to see the Everest; This seems no small thing because of the harsh geographical environment was discouraged by the people around, Mr.Big determined to have a little different in ordinary life, in the ordinary life to meet their own little wish, so he insisted on the way to persuade friends set foot on Tibet…

Buy a Ticket →

Language: Mandarin

Subtitle: Chnese / English

Synopsis：

Guang is a story about two brothers. The older brother Wen Guang is autistic and cannot focus or socialize with other people. Even so, his brother still tries to help him find a job. However, because of Wen Guang cannot focus, he fails again and again and even makes trouble, which make his brother angry and helpless. One day, his brother suddenly hears music coming from his room. The brother opens the door and realizes that he is shinning all along because of his music talent.

Awards：

The 21st SIFF (Shanghai International Film Festival) Asian New Talent Award

Award for Best Film（nominated）: Guang

The 21st SIFF (Shanghai International Film Festival) Asian New Talent Award

Award for Best Director（nominated）: Shio Chuan Quek

The 21st SIFF (Shanghai International Film Festival) Asian New Talent Award

Award for Best Actor（nominated）: Zhong Wei Zhuang

Buy a Ticket →

Language: Mandarin

Subtitle: Chnese / English

Synopsis

Silent Winter is the first independent film written and directed by the young director Mr. Da Fei. The film is produced by Mr. Fang Li, a famous filmmaker. It was on the shortlist of several Chinese and international film festivals, such as the Montreal World Film Festival, and won awards.

This film tells a story of the love and hate between two brothers and a woman in the 1990s. With the theme of ‘destiny’, it shows the sadness and strength of people facing the confusing reality. In the film, the woman is unable to make a choice between the rough but straightforward elder brother and the mild but hesitating younger brother, where makes all of them caught in a moral dilemma. They keep finding a way out.

Buy a Ticket →

Language: Cantonese

Subtitle: Chnese / English

Synopsis

Mrs. Wong knows her husband is carrying on an affair, but for the sake of their marriage and autistic son, she has chosen to silently endure. However, the mistress comes to disturb them, and in the end, Mr. Wong leaves home after a flight. Feeling at a loss and struggling to watch over her son by herself, Mrs. Wong begins to plot ways to take revenge against the mistress, but in the run-up to the plan, she soon discovered that there can be other ways to become a better woman…

Competition

2019 GKCFF Best Actress Award

Best New Actor in The 37th Hong Kong Film Awards (2018)

Shanghai International Film Festival

Hong Kong Asian Film Festival

Silk Road International Film Festival

Malaysia International Film Festival Asian Film Awards

Singapore Chinese Film Festival

Buy a Ticket →