| Director: | Ye Lou |
|---|---|
| Production: | Yingfilms (Ma Yingli), Qianyi Times, Lou Ye, Bai An Films, Tianyi Movie & Tv |
| Running Time: | 126’ |
| Language: | Mandarin, English, Japanese, French, German |
| Country: | China |
| Main Cast: | Gong Li, Mark Chao, Joe Odagiri, Pascal Greggory, Tom Wlaschiha, Huang Xiangli |
| Screenplay: | Ma Yingli |
| Cinematographer: | Zeng Jian |
| Editor: | Lou Ye, Feng Shan Yulin |
| Production Designer: | Zhong Cheng |
| Costume Designer: | Linlin May |
| Sound: | Fu Kang |
| Visual Effects: | Wang Lei |
| Notes: | from the novel Death of Shanghai by Hong Ying |
Cinema
Lan xin da ju yuan (Saturday Fiction)
Venezia 76 Competition
Synopsis
1941, since the Japanese occupation, China has become a wartime intelligence battlefield for the Allies and the Axis Powers. Iconic actress Jean Yu returns to Shanghai, ostensibly to appear in the play Saturday Fiction directed by her former lover. But what is her true aim? To free her ex-husband? To gather intelligence for the Allied Forces? To work for her adoptive father? Or to escape from war with her lover? As she embarks on her mission, with friends ever more difficult to distinguish from undercover agents, as everything spirals out of control, Jean Yu starts to question whether to reveal what she has learnt about the imminent Pearl Harbor attack.
Director’s Statement
When I was a kid, I used to follow my parents, who worked in theatre, backstage, at the Lyceum Theatre in Shanghai. I spent a lot of interesting time there. It was also where I rubbed shoulders with actors in costume and watched them playing different roles, their loves and hatreds, and their separations through life or death on stage. Then I’d see them walking off the stage and chatting in the dressing rooms. And I’d follow them again, leaving the theatre, going back to their dull and ordinary real lives. It was a fantastic experience, shuttling back and forth between stories and reality. Many years later, reading Death of Shanghai by Hong Ying (a novel about Shanghai’s solitary Island period) gave me the same feeling.
The first week of December 1941 changed the history of the world—although the people of that period did not know it. Unaware of the future, they would simply live their lives as usual, following their daily routines and pursuing their goals. During Shanghai’s solitary Island period, in and outside the theatre, on and off- stage, they were slowly approaching that unknown “Saturday” which belongs to their own destinies.
This film is about the destinies of different people during a time of complex world crisis. It is also a dialogue with the Saturday School, an important school in the history of Chinese Contemporary Literature.
Producers/Distributors
PRODUCTION: Yingli MA – YINGFILMS
A2-3, QI KE SHU CREATIVITY PARK, JIU XIAN QIAO, CHAO YANG DISTRICT
100016 – Beijing, China
Tel. + 86 10 64189469
yinglima@yingfilms.com
OTHER COPRODUCTIONS :
QIANYI TIMES (CHANG Jihong – Executive Producer); YINGFILMS (LOU Ye – Executive Producer); BAI AN FILMS (DONG Peiwen – Executive Producer); TIANYI MOVIE & TV (WU Yi – Executive Producer)
WORLD SALES: Esther Devos – Wild Bunch
65, rue de Dunkerque
75009 – Paris, France
Tel. 33143132127
edevos@wildbunch.eu
INTERNATIONAL AND ITALIAN PRESS OFFICE: Claudia Tomassini + Associates - International Film Publicity
Saarbrücker Str 24
10405 – Berlin, Germany
Tel. + 491732055794
claudia@claudiatomassini.com
venicepr@claudiatomassini.com
US PRESS: Emilie Spiegel, Layla Hancock Piper – Cinetic Marketing
555 West 25th Street, 4th Floor
10001 - New York, United States
Mob. +1 516) 524-9392; +49 1732055794
Emilie@cineticmedia.com
layla@cineticmedia.com
