Only If Possible

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Director: Kiva Liu | 5min

Synopsis Statement

As long as Xiong Chunwei doesn’t take one day off, he is one of the busiest delivery men from ZTO Express in Jiuxianqiao area, Chaoyang, Beijing. Every Saturday or Sunday, his wife and son take a bus from the “urban village” Picun, to meet him up for one hour during his lunch break. One afternoon, he made his mind to go home on his second hand electronic motor.

Director's Statement

Kiva Liu is a journalist, writer and filmmaker currently based in Beijing. She received her master in journalism from Boston University. Before her job at OW Magazine as the deputy editor-in-chief, she worked as a documentary producer for WGBH (PBS-affiliated) and an online reporter in Boston for WCVB (ABC affiliated). As a non-fiction writer, her writings, mostly feature stories, have been published on Southern Weekly, New York Times Magazine Beijing, Elle China, Portrait Magazine, Initium Media, among many others. As a documentary filmmaker, She has been working as a director/producer for THIRTEEN TALKS and THIRTEEN WONDERING, two documentary series produced by Tencent and One Way Space. Her independent documentaries have been widely screened in institutions and schools throughout China including UCCA.

Let's Fall in Love

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Director: Zhou Shengwei | 5min

Synopsis Statement

The film combines animation and mockumentary to get a glimpse of the boring but romantic daily life of a middle-aged man living alone from the perspective of a monitor. I put my emotional feelings and thoughts into this short film as a response of the pandemic. I want to illustrate the individual’s desire for love in this isolate environment.

Director's Statement

Zhou Shengwei, digital artist/cross-border director, graduated from Peking University, currently study Animation and Digital Arts at the University of Southern California. His representative feature film SHE won the Best Animated Feature Film Nomination at the 21st Shanghai International Film Festival. Another film ART IS DEAD won the Spirit of Freedom Award at 14th FIRST International Film Festival.

The Hotpot (Recommended by vivo)

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Director: Ying Zhaoyi | 5min

Synopsis Statement

A young lady tries to host a hotpot dinner with friends on her birthday, but she has so many things to do…

Director's Statement

Ying Zhaoyi works in theatre. Her works include stop-motion animation I QUIT, short film OCEAN CROSSER and A NORMAL AFTERNOON.

BANG

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Director: Zhang Yiqing | 3min08sec

Synopsis Statement

On May 20, a homophonic symbol of ‘I love you’ in Chinese, whenever someone falls in love, someone loses it. When a peaceful secret love being suddenly interrupted, where should the girl place her broken feelings and unexpression of love?

Director's Statement

Zhang Yiqing, an undergraduate student at Xi'an International Studies University, an well-known bilibili vlogger who is from Xi'an, Shaanxi. Her works mostly reflect her personal life experience which are truly moving. In 2020, the short film "I took the train to Tibet with 1685 yuan,spending 31 hours in a carriage with hard seats and I suddenly wanted to be alive" won the "Best Actress Award" in the 2020 Tencent News New Video Competition. In 2021, The short film "My care still rises even on the first Chinese New Year far away from home" and "Happy 21st Birthday" won the first and third prizes of the Fifth National Youth Cup Art Design Competition respectively.

A LIVE

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Director: Alexvi (Li Xiaoliang) Zhang Tianyi | 5min

Synopsis Statement

The film depicts a virtual world presented on screen. In this world, the reality has taken a back seat. Everyone is a performer, and a spectator at the same time. The main character, XiaoDie, with an obsession with popularity, joins the cyber carnival. After going through a lot of setbacks, she faints from exhaustion…

Director's Statement

Alexvi (Li Xiaoliang), filmmaker & Photographer. Over the last decade, he has collaborated with mainstream art and fashion media working with major Chinese actors, directors and artists as well as Hollywood celebrities and rock singers. At the same time, he has been continuously working on his personal art projects. With his visual arts practice, Alexvi relentlessly challenges conventions of photography as a medium and at times venturing into the domain of video art.

Zhang Tianyi is a multi-media artist who works in photography, performance, digital film, and social media. She holds an MFA Degree in Photographic and Electronic Media at the Maryland Institute College of Art, in the USA, and a BFA from The Central Academy of Fine Arts, in China. Zhang’s art projects have been shortlisted in Ashurst Emerging Art Prize 2021, and have been presented in art festivals and galleries around the world, including Elijah Wheat Gallery, in New York, The New Art Fest, in Lisbon, Video Arte Faenza, in Colombia…

Smoke

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Director: Yu Lei | 4min19sec

Synopsis Statement

The story is about grandma Zhou, an elderly lady who lives alone, has mistaken her landlord for her grandson. The film uses 52 close-ups to complete a simple narrative. The whole narrative reversed twice but the main storyline is not shown in the film.

Director's Statement

Yu Lei, male, 40 years old, completed the film NATURE in 2015, won the 10th FIRST International Film Festival Best Short Film in 2016, the 13th China Independent Film Exhibition Jury Award, participated in the film EAST POLE ISLAND project in 2017, and acted as the film director.

Hide and Seek

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Director: Guan Tian | 4min54sec

Synopsis Statement

A young boy hides under a desk and peeps a horrible fight between his parents. He uses his imagination to transform the frightening scene into a beautiful day dream…

Director's Statement

Guan Tian graduated from Central Academy of Drama and earned his MFA degrees from Syracuse University and CalArts. His short films have screened widely at international film festivals and were awarded by Warsaw Film Festival, LA Film Fest, Gijon Film Festival, Leeds Film Festival, etc. His first feature project was selected by HAF Film Lab and FIRST Feature Lab.

In the Car

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Director: Zhang Zhao | 4min49sec

Synopsis Statement

This is an experiment about the long lens recording with only one device of one space and two people. The director and producer are the couple in the car. The GoPro placed in front of the car truly records the daily conversation, quarrel, kiss and tears. The experiment lasted for one month. On the fourth day after the shooting, a quarrel broke out in the car about “film pitch”. The two held different opinions, including misunderstanding, emotion, restraint and helplessness.

Director's Statement

Zhang Zhao, graduated from Jilin University and Warwick University. After graduation, she entered the MEDOC & ELEMEET Film Company, and has maintained the cooperative relationship until now. She was a director of Fun-age Film & Culture Company.

Chongqing Oscar

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Director: Zhou Zijie | 4min54sec

Synopsis Statement

A graduated film student’s thesis film was shortlisted for the student Oscar academy, when his hometown-Chongqing’s reporter interviewed him online, many absurd things happened, led to the embarrassing interruption of the interview…

Director's Statement

Zhou Zijie is a growing gangster, a director & director of photography who was born in Chongqing China. He began his career as documentary filmmaker work for VICE CHINA, as commercial Director/DP and indie narrative shorts director nowadays. His solid background of documentary and feature film history enables him to explore the tension of drama in his works. Currently he is pursuing his master degree in filmmaking at University of South California.

Orange, Bee, and Snow Mountain

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Director: Ma Haijiao | 4min

Synopsis Statement

A bee flies out from the “blooming flower” dynamic wallpaper of the smartphone, and then flies into the front camera of the phone. After that, the bee flies in the operation interface of the phone and finally flies out from the rear camera. The director structures the film in the way of association, by building up an orange indoor space and imaginatively processing images of “flowers”, “snow mountain” and “orange”, which are derived from the smartphone UI.

Director's Statement

Ma Haijiao studied from 2009 to 2016 at the China Academy of Art, where he gained a BA and then an MFA. He now lives and works in Beijing. His art practice has an enduring concern with the daily “routine” of life, and taking this as his starting point, he traces its logic to shape video narratives and other works. He was a nominee for the JIMEI x ARLES Discovery Award, 2020. He won the prize of EACA (East Asian Contemporary Art) in 2019, he was a finalist of the Huayu Youth Award in Art Sanya 2018, and a finalist for the 10th Three Shadows Photography Award, he was a nominee for the A021xPORSCHE Young Chinese Artist of the Year, 2017. His work was collected by art institutions such as Smart Museum of Art (Chicago) and Power Station of Art (Shanghai).

A Blind Date

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Director: Miao | 5min

Synopsis Statement

A boy lives with his cell phone, which takes him to a place every Thursday, but doesn’t tell him where to go. Where are they going this Thursday?

Director's Statement

Miao, a genre film director.

Date by the Sea

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Director: Ma Wenrui Yuan Zitian | 4min32sec

Synopsis Statement

In 2040, the ocean is seriously polluted, and humans are forced to migrate inland; Kyle and his online dating girlfriend who he never met encounters at the seaside where his girlfriend lives. They explored each other’s lives, but were taken during the medical examination to obtain a driver’s license. Kyle is diagnosed with color blindness. At the same time, his girlfriend was forced to move away from the beach…

Director's Statement

Ma Wenrui, once engaged in film planning, now working in an Internet company.

Yuan Zitian, advertising editor.

Password?

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Director: Jade L | 4min53sec

Synopsis Statement

A girl who wakes up to find herself in a first-person exploration game begins searching for clues in a small room to open the password-sealed door.

Director's Statement

Jade L, graduated from Beijing Film Academy. The ultimate dream is to enter another dimension.

Please Do Not Tell Her

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Director: Wang Yunxia | 5min

Synopsis Statement

Wang Huihui, a genius girl whose IQ is only one point less than Hawking, has been a hot topic in public opinion for many years. One day in 2015, 9-year-old Wang Huihui disappears on the day she is admitted to the best university in China.

Director's Statement

Wang Yunxia, from Taiyuan, Shanxi, is a young director and screenwriter. Yunxia graduated from The Central Academy of Drama, and now she is studying in the Columbia University Screenwriting and Directing MFA program.

Time Is Like Some Kind of Jelly

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Director: Gan Meiying | 4min59sec

Synopsis Statement

In January 2020, life on Earth begins to come to a standstill when the COVID-19 breaks out, people’s routines have been disrupted, their sorrows and joys are disconnected, and even their perceptions of time are completely different … The two main characters in the story have been in a long-distance relationship for years, the girl studying in the UK and the boy in China. During the epidemic, the two keep up their calls, only to discover that their perceptions of time are very different – the girl, who is isolated at home in the UK, senses that time stops; while the boy, who is at the center of the epidemic and the virus causes him to feel crisis, feel time bursting, surging and rushing forward. The duo begins reading The Order of Time to find a glimmer of solace in Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity …

Director's Statement

After completing her undergraduate degree in Media and Communications at Goldsmiths, University of London, Gan Meiying has been focusing on Computational Arts whilst critically analyzing the use of Virtual-Reality in film in Britain. Her BA graduation short film, WISH TANK, has been nominated for 14th FIRST International Film Festival.

Monster

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Director: Wang Jiuliang | 5min

Synopsis Statement

A little fish was looking for food freely, but inadvertently witnessed cruel hunting of other marine creatures by a capture fisherman. And at the moment when the capture fisherman and this little fish face each other, a crazy hunt begins…
Underwater monster is the common name for capture fisherman. Of course, they are humans, but to marine creatures hiding in rocks and water plants, they can be described as real monsters.

Director's Statement

Wang Jiuliang, director of award-winning and impactful documentary film BEIJING BESIEGED BY WASTE. Wang graduated from Communication University of China, School of Cinematic Arts in 2007. From 2007 to 2008, he finished a set of photography work about Chinese traditional superstitions. He started investigating the landfill pollution around Beijing in 2008. In 2011, he finished BEIJING BESIEGED BY WASTE, a set of photography work and a documentary with the same name. His documentary film PLASTIC CHINA won the jury award in the Newcomer Section of the IDFA International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam in 2016 and was nominated at the Main Competition Section at the Sundance Film Festival and for the Best Documentary Film at FIRST - International Film Festival Xining in 2017.

I am Air

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Director: Zhu Yi | 4min26sec

Synopsis Statement

This is the dialogues between the world’s air and people in the future, will people be the master of the world, or are they just parasites of the earth? Let the air tell you.
Husserl proposed that existence is the object requirement of consciousness. In the future, the consciousness of the air will become a system that can be experienced, and humans will be able to dive into it. However, this system was created for the purpose of changing you at this moment.
The film attempts to explore the balance between humans and nature. Through speculative narrative way, consciousness substitution is used as story clues, quantum eraser experiment and Newtonian classical mechanics are used as theoretical basis, across the boundary between reality and virtuality. Try to guide the audience to have a new perspective on nature and behavior after the visual experience.

Director's Statement

Zhu Yi, filmmaker and artist, born in Shanghai. Now studying at the Royal College of Art in the UK, majoring in moving image design.

Frozen Out

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Director: Zhou Hao | 4min55sec

Synopsis Statement

An immigrant artist in a foreign land retreats to frozen prairies and forests, trying to find a meaningful story and escape from the anxieties of dislocation. The film is narrated as a letter to the directorʼs little sister, who appears in memories from southwest China.

Director's Statement

Born in 1992 in Chongqing, China. Zhou Hao directed, produced and played the main part in his debut feature THE NIGHT, which premiered in 2014 in Berlinale. THE NIGHT also won top prizes at Geneva Independent, Nara, China Independent, Dong Film Fest, and others. Zhou refined his filmmaking at Cannes Film Festival’s residency in Paris as well as Xining FIRST Training Camp, Talents Tokyo, and Berlinale Talents.

A Bite of Summer

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Director: Hu Maomao | 4min14sec

Synopsis Statement

After her father lost her pet dog Le Le, the daughter observes her parents’ life with the security camera that she used to watch Le Le.

Director's Statement

Hu Maomao, from Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. After graduating from university, I became a self-educated filmmaker out of the passion for filmmaking. In 2013, I studied in the Film Research Institute of Yunnan University. After that, I joined a media company in Nanjing and became a short video director.

The New Phone

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Director: Fan Fan | 4min58sec

Synopsis Statement

Jia Jie bought himself a new mobile phone and the phone was stolen when he was dating with his girlfriend. The phone changed hands several times and was sold to Lao Wu, an expressman. Accidentally, this phone met his first owner again…

Director's Statement

Fan Fan, graduated from School of Communication, Shenzhen University. He participated in the production of TV series, and also once made short films which has been selected for the Shanghai International Biennale. Now he works as a TVC/DM director.

Searching for Noel

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Director: Frank Fang | 4min56sec

Synopsis Statement

An incident happened during my continuing archaeology journey on old family videos. To get the approval of using old footages shot in my hometown Hangzhou by a foreigner, I set out to find the contact to Noel Leeder, the one who shot those footage back in 1990.

Director's Statement

Frank Fang was born in Hangzhou in 1996, he graduated from Communication University of Zhejiang in 2018. He created several photography works and film works, the films Frank made were mostly combinations of experimental cinema and documentary. Frank is currently making an experimental documentary project about the forgotten places in Hangzhou city called ABANDONED LANDSCAPES.

On the Eve

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Director: Zhang Linyuan | 4min09sec

Synopsis Statement

The film follows a family in a small town who, due to feudal superstition, dissuades a girl from attending their relative’s funeral the day before.

Director's Statement

Zhang Linyuan is a Hohhot-based filmmaker majoring in radio and television.

We Are in This Apart

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Director: Yung Chang | 4min48sec

Synopsis Statement

What do you get when you cross a filmmaker and a puppeteer stuck in quarantine?
You get We Are in This Apart. Filmed during our toddler’s nap times with limited resources save for a smart phone, the internet, and a partner with a PhD in puppetry, We Are in This Apart takes our collective longing for joyous interconnection and interprets it through the eyes of our protagonist who our First AD toddler named “Coco”.

Director's Statement

Yung Chang is the director of UP THE YANGTZE (2007), CHINA HEAVYWEIGHT (2012), THE FRUIT HUNTERS (2012), and THIS IS NOT A MOVIE(2019) . Chang is the recipient of the Don Haig Award, the Yolande and Pierre Perrault Award, and the Guggenheim Emerging Artist Award. He is a member of the Directors Guild of Canada. In 2013, he was invited to become a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organization behind the Academy Awards / Oscars®.

Paper Plane

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Director: Dominic Yeh | 4min59sec

Synopsis Statement

2020; Wuhan during lockdown; 76 days. A romantic and silent story happened. They use paper planes to tell their feelings, and the paper planes like hope. On the other side, there was a passerby who saw the whole process and felt an unspeakable mood that combines happiness with depression and longing. After watching it, he deeply smoked a cigarette and then disappeared with a covered mask on his face. Anyway, life has to go on.

Director's Statement

Dominic Yeh, born in 1998, writer, director, songwriter and actor. In 2017, he was admitted to the Performing Department of Dongguk University. In 2018, he founded 2666 Film Studio (international team) as a screenwriter, director and composer after self-studied. The work IN THE MUD was selected at the Cannes Film Festival (Short Film Corner), Clermont Film Festival in France, transferred to the London School of Art LCC, won 10 international awards, and more than 20 finalists.