Recently, the 14th Beijing International Film Festival Xu Anhua Film Master Class took the lead. The film master class was hosted by the famous Hong Kong director and producer Ann Hui as the keynote speaker, and the director Wen Yan had a dialogue, and Professor Dai Jinhua of Peking University served as the special guest host. At the event, the three guests had a dialogue and shared on the theme of "The Long Road of Female Independent Filmmakers", reviewed the creative process of director Ann Hui, and showed the film epic written by female independent filmmakers.
Hui Anhua, known as half of Hong Kong's film history, is not only Professor Tai Kam-wah's opening remarks, but also a highly concise and summary of Hui's creative career. Since his film debut in 1979, Madness, director Ann Hui has always captured social changes and life situations from a delicate female perspective, showing the audience a Hong Kong, China that is hidden beneath the surface of the bustling city, full of fireworks, and the image of "ordinary people" living here.
"Women's perspective" and "gender thinking" are the natural themes of director Xu Anhua's works, and they are also topics that are popular with the audience. Talking about these, director Xu Anhua behaved very indifferently: "When you reach a certain age, your views will change, I used to shoot something more dramatic and impactful, but in middle age, under the influence of Hou Xiaoxian and Yang Dechang, I began to directly 'talk about life'." ”
"Thinking about gender is something I didn't think about until I was in my 70s. In the past, I didn't deliberately think from a woman's point of view when filming, but it just so happened that the protagonist of this story was a woman, so I knew her better. Now I find that when you look at a problem from a higher perspective, you will understand the ins and outs of it better, so thinking is necessary. I feel that the film industry did not pay so much attention to 'female perspective' or 'gender thinking' in the past, but after reading a lot of relevant materials and books, I feel that this kind of thinking must and must be there after broadening my horizons, and the promotion of feminism is also one of the manifestations of social progress. ”
Director Wen Yan, who also focuses on women-themed films, also gave his own opinions when talking about "female perspective" and "gender thinking": "When I create films, I start more from myself, our perspective on the world must be limited, there are too many puzzles and unknowns, I will bring such a perspective to my film shooting, inviting the audience to participate in the film narrative and interact with the film." ”
Director Wen Yan said: "When I first started creating, I was also ignorant of the concept of gender, and I was gradually groping. But because I have a lot of questions, I triggered the thinking in the movie, and then put these questions and thoughts in my own work. For example, the presentation of female characters in the film narrative is something that I have gradually formed a clear understanding through reading and watching the film while creating, asking questions, and thinking at the same time. ”
In the master class, several filmmakers also discussed the question of "what is film": "Cinema is not only a narrative, but also the director's perception and feeling. This is the answer given by director Xu Anhua. Referring to the fact that he has never written scripts, director Hui Anhua humbly said that he is not good at writing scripts: "I have always respected literature and am used to working with screenwriters. I don't think everybody can write a screenplay, because it may be a story to write out, but it's not a screenplay, because the script has a rhythm. I want to write, but I'm afraid I can't write well. ”
Director Wen Yan admitted that there was no other source of scripts at the beginning of creation, so he could only rely on his own creation. For Wen Yan, writing a script is "the happiest part of the whole creative process", and she can freely and whimsically create a world, create the characters in this world and the environment in which they live. In the process of writing, it is constantly examined, and finally it is presented in the form of images in the mind, like a dream. "I think your script will be complete when you can really dream like that. ”
When talking about the need to read a lot of relevant books and documents to adapt literary works, director Hui Anhua said that reading materials is a necessary process, but she is more concerned and pays more attention to the feeling of entering the shooting space. "In fact, today, I feel more and more that these 'feelings' are movies, not just real stories. Movies are actually about your opinions and your feelings, and if you have very good opinions and things that are different from others, your movie will become. ”
Modern Express/Modern + reporters Zheng Wenjing and Li Yixing
(Source: Beijing International Film Festival)