17th Cinema on the Bayou Virtual Film Festival

NARRATIVE SHORTS - AWARD WINNERS AND OSCAR CONTENDERS

Expired February 7, 2022 5:00 AM
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An ordinary farming family lives a simple life in a quiet and remote mountain village in the south China. A lonely boy brought his cattle to take shower in the river in an afternoon.


Director's Biography:


Chinese screenwriter/director Grace Hsia is a graduate of Beijing Film Academy majored in Filmmaking. She majored in visual communication in Hunan University. She worked as documentary director in Enlight Picture, one of the top 3 fim company in China.


Grace’s films provide an insightful view into the multiple layers and often conflicting facts of characters and society. She investigates shifting boundaries between fact and fiction and produces story which is moving and eye-opening. Her previous films include short documentary A BOHEMIAN IN CHINA (2014) A TEMPORARY HOME (2015) and LOST WITH DREAM (2016) starring Jingting Bai. And her fiction short film STILL HOME (2017), BROKEN FLOWERS (2019) have been screened at over 50 International film festivals.


Director's Statement:


As a filmmaker, real life experience and social phenomenon always inspire me. Silent Storm is inspired by global pandemic situation that we are facing now. Also inspired by the relationship between animals and human being.


At the end of 2002, SARS first broke out in the Guangdong province, China. The final research results showed that SARS originated from bats. For the next couple of years, the source of many major global epidemics as well as Covid-19 pandemic was pointed at wild animals. Official data showed that an average of 506,000 wild animals were confiscated in China every year from 2015 to 2017. The highest proportion of cases involved illegal acquisition, sales and the production of endangered wildlife. Countries in Asia and Africa have be identified as the leading culprits in this culture of exploitive animal trafficking. What lessons can be learnt from it? So I want to explore with SilentStorm, a9-min short film with no dialogue to make a bold and personal guess about causes behind global pandemic nowadays. To create a poetic and innocent picture of nature in simple mountain village, to raise exploratory and ecological questions about the relationship between human, nature and animals in the same habitat through a child’s perspective. To serve as a powerful reminder to its audience to consider the delicate balance of ecology coexist. How long will man kind upset the delicate ecological balance between nature and human?



  • Year
    2021
  • Runtime
    9 minutes
  • Country
    China
  • Premiere
    Louisiana Premiere
  • Director
    Grace Hsia
  • Screenwriter
    Grace Hsia
  • Producer
    Grace Hsia, Eduardo M Escribano Solera