"Mom and Seven Days of Time" poster
Recently, south Korea's Busan International Film Festival officially announced the shortlist, upstream news Chongqing Morning News reporter learned that the film debut "Mama and Seven Days of Time" (MAMA), choreographed by Chongqing director Li Dongmei, was shortlisted for the "Window of Asian Cinema" unit, which is also the film's second entry into the heavyweight international film festival after being shortlisted for the Venice Day unit of the 77th Venice International Film Festival.
The reporter learned that "Mother and Seven Days of Time" is a Chongqing-made film, produced by Langli (Chongqing) Film and Television Culture Media Co., Ltd., filmed in Wushan, Chongqing, supervised by Wang Hongwei, li Dongmei and Chi Qingbo as producers, and co-starring Ge Wendan and Cheng Shuqiong.
Directed by Li Dongmei
Chi Qingbo, one of the producers, said in an interview with reporters that "Mother and Seven Days of Time" is a film that commemorates mothers and pays tribute to mothers, based on the personal experience of director Li Dongmei, and is interpreted by all vegetarians, starting from the memories of a twelve-year-old girl Xiao Xian about her family and village, telling the seven-day experience in rural China in the 1990s. During these seven days, there were three deaths and two births.
The story is full of personal style and philosophical meaning, as a native of Chongqing, director Li Dongmei tries to express her nostalgia for her homeland and her mother in this visual way. According to reports, the film was filmed in Wushan, Chongqing in August 2019, and the whole process was filmed in Wushan, which lasted nearly a month to complete the filming work.
Stills from "Mama and Seven Days of Time"
At the just-concluded 77th Venice Film Festival, there were four Chinese directors' works, among which Zhao Ting's "No Place" was shortlisted for the main competition unit, Jia Zhangke's "More Than Endless" was shortlisted for the horizon unit, Xu Anhua's "First Burning Incense" was shortlisted for the non-competition unit, and Li Dongmei's "Mother and Seven Days of Time" was also selected for the Venice Day unit, and the world premiere was held at 17:00 Italian time on September 9, officially meeting the audience.
At the premiere, director Li Dongmei, who could not go to Venice because of the impact of the epidemic, said when connecting the front personnel that the film had the opportunity to be released in Venice this time, hoping to get the audience's likes, "This is my first feature film, I have always wanted to use this film to say goodbye to my deceased mother, so the story and the scenes filmed are more realistic." In the film, I try to present those memory fragments in the most rustic and concise way, without any modification and rendering, but the time in each shot is the echo of my memory for 27 years."
Li Dongmei communicated with the premiere scene through video
Venice Day is a parallel section of the main competition of the Venice Film Festival, and since its inception in 2004, it has stepped out of the famous directors such as Kim Ki-duk, Agnès Varda, Naomi Kawase, Christopher Honoré, etc., and is a film festival section that is very popular with new and old creators.
In Chinese films, directors such as Lou Ye, Mai Junlong, Zhao Deyin, Peng Fei, and Zhu Yuanqing have also participated in the Venice Day unit, and Li Dongmei is the first Chinese female director to be shortlisted for this unit for her film debut.
Upstream News Chongqing Morning News reporter Tang Hao