Chen Cuimei directed the book after the screening interview
Chen Cuimei
Emerging Malaysian directors, who are very active in the Malaysian independent film industry, are the backbone of the new wave of Malaysian cinema that has gained momentum in recent years. Her feature film debut, Love Conquers Everything, has participated in dozens of film festivals and won a New Wave Award at the 11th Busan Film Festival. Serves as a member of the FIRST Venture Capital Council Proposal Judge.
At the 6.29th "He/Her Hometown Whispers" theme screening, after screening four short films and a long story directed by Chen Cuimei, the book conducted an exclusive interview with the film and director Chen Cuimei's creative process, and then invited director Lahuajia to talk about their special culture and growth environment.
Today we are in the beautiful ancient canal river, such a silk museum with historical characteristics, witnessing the encounter between director Chen Cuimei and Lahuajia. Director Chen Cuimei's works were also screened in the Asian Legends and Reality section of the Shanghai Film Festival this time, and we are now doing a dialogue with Director Chen. Director Chen, you have also worked as a journalist and teacher before, so how did you embark on the road of film directing?
A
Regarding journalists, I have not officially worked as a regular journalist, I have been a student journalist when I was a student. I was the first computer animation graduate in Malaysia, and after graduating from university, the school asked me to go back to work as a teaching assistant, so I was a tutor for computer animation for three years. In fact, when I was studying computer animation, I wrote about film and animation in college, and I actually wanted to study film. When I was in middle school, I had a dream of making movies, but when I went to college, I found out that it was actually a computer animation department. But in the whole process of learning computer animation, I also learned some things in the movie, and made a lot of friends who later made movies together, which was not a very sudden process, but a dream that began when I was in middle school.
Just when I graduated, I met the malaysian independent film when it was just starting out, around 2000, and when I graduated in 2001, in 2000, a lawyer came up with his first independent film. The first time I was involved in independent film production, I was a photographer for him, and then I was an editor, and I was also an actor, and I did art, and probably none of us had studied film at that time, and then we helped each other. In the process of making short films, I learned to make movies, and then I made my first feature film in 2006, and I may have made 5 or 6 short films before making my first feature film. After the first feature film, more than a dozen short films were made successively.
It's a bit like the directors in the TaiwanEse New Wave who help each other. Later in the creation, we learned that many of them were directed by Jia Zhangke as producers. There is also the famous Taiwanese writer Zhang Dachun in the screenwriter, can you tell us about this situation?
I moved to Beijing in 2010, during which time I wrote a micro-novel every day, starting in November 2010 and writing until 2012 and 2013, I had only been writing for a few days, and suddenly Sina had a micro-fiction competition, and I invited Zhang Dachun to be a judge. The highest score he gave at that time was my work. It was called "Grief is Popular", and then I went to talk to him, and I started talking about writing a script together, and then I began to cooperate slowly.
So you're not just a director, you're a writer. So what do you think of the connection or some difference between text creation and image creation?
I actually want to do text creation, and the sense of satisfaction and pleasure it brings me is also stronger. Even if I write a micro-novel of just over 140 words, I may have read it myself and read it, and I like it very much, and it gives me a great sense of creative satisfaction.
But when I make movies, I always think I'm making things that suck and I don't want to show them at all. Almost every short story, whether long or long, I would go into the process and feel like it wasn't what I wanted at all. Of course, it is also because the film itself is not a personal creation. The crew has cinematography, there are actors, sometimes they can give you what you want, sometimes they will put their own things in, and I started to let other people's things in after a long time, especially when I was shooting "Summerless Year".
When I was in the past, for example, in an actor's performance, his lines could not be changed word by word, and I had to follow the word I had written word by word. But I think movies have a bigger possibility. Many people say that when you read a text, you use more imagination, and then the movie is more direct. I think on the contrary, the film should be more open.
Your "Year Without Summer", in which there is a moonlight, people on the boat reminiscing about their childhood memories, which is particularly touching. Is this a personal experience of your own, or is it also derived from your own writing?
I wanted to make movies early on, and my second sister was one of my earliest inspirations. She is a storyteller in my family, our home is by the sea and the toilet is 200 meters away. My second sister is very timid, and when she wants to go to the toilet, she always needs someone to accompany her. The way she asks someone to accompany her is that she tells a story.
When she was 16 years old, when I was 12 years old, she mentioned that Hou Xiaoxian's "Childhood Past" had some scenes, very similar to our lives, and suddenly said come with us to make a film, and then began to depict the opening of the movie she imagined, and then went to college to choose movies and animation, and because I always wanted to shoot the place where we grew up, it was something that promoted me to create a. I always felt that I couldn't photograph my hometown well, it was an unlikely thing to be repeated. There are things that are particularly beautiful in memory, and there is no way to find them again in reality.
Many of your creations are a combination of multiple directors, you exist in this way, and then go to the producer, the investor or the producer finds you, and carries out such a creation. What do you think is the reason why you were invited to such a combination?
I think we were in a different environment than we were here, there was no film school in Malaysia. In the beginning of 2000, a lot of our friends in this class, some of them were law students or engineers, and I was relatively close to the movie, and one of our leaders often said that although we didn't have any money, we had at least friends. You help me, I help you, everyone forms a team, this time you help me edit, next time I help you do photography. It's also a way for us to study film, but I think that form may not be needed in China. I think that the promotion of new directors and venture capital in China now is not an opportunity that we can imagine at that time. It was only because of our opportunities and circumstances at the time that required it.
Just now we understand some of the stories of Malaysia, Malaysian cinema it has a new wave, can you make some of the main works, as well as the authors, let's make a basic popularization?
In fact, the Malaysian New Wave does not know where it began to speak, it is not like the French New Wave, the German New Wave, the Taiwan New Wave, which has formed a great influence on the people behind. Malaysia I think it was a little bit of a ripple and then there was none. Like those of us who are new directors, we probably know a little bit, but nothing is affected. I don't think it's a new wave, but it's a force for more than a decade. There were a lot of new Malaysian films between 2005 and 2010, and there was a group of people who probably saw at least two or three Malaysian films at major film festivals every year, and there were none since 2010. Few malaysians, including those in Malaysia today, have been affected by the New Wave.
In our time, there are various forms of innovation, the emergence of various media, so that the boundaries of film have been greatly expanded, how do you think about the future of films, what breakthroughs will they have?
In fact, the history of movies is very short, just over a hundred years, and then every ten years there will be a shout: "The best movies have passed, and now they are all bad movies!" "Especially the French. Everyone thinks that the movies he used to be better, or the movies he watched as a teenager were better, and the movies now are all bad. In fact, the film has always had a breakthrough, I don't know what the future breakthrough will be, but I think what we need more is not the form. Because with 3D movies, we don't necessarily say I'm going to see 3D. Another problem I find in many new movies is that the film is very well done, but they don't have anything they particularly want to say, they don't have a particularly new perspective. You'll see a new director's work, which is imitating the director he likes, or repeating the same thing.
The breakthrough I want is not the technical and formal aspects, I want innovation to be if there are some new perspectives and can make me change.
"He/she whispers" sharing dialogue
We also have a director today, the Tibetan director Rahuaga, who watched these five films very carefully throughout the whole process, and from his works, we can feel a kind of memory that we share, and at the same time have some characteristics of ethnic minorities. Director Chen Cuimei her ancestral home is Kinmen, but she grew up in Malaysia, and she shoots a Malaysian story, which is the meaning of "other hometown" in "other hometown". Below is the theme forum of the two directors, colliding from their respective whispers.
The Tibetan-speaking population is only one piece of China's territory, Malaysia is also much smaller than China, they all have their own unique cultural characteristics, will you two start from such two regions will have a sense of cultural mission, and want to spread the unique perception of your hometown to more people in your work?
I have a work called "Tanjung Marin Has a Tree", which is completely about a Chinese girl in Malaysia, and I imagined at that time that no foreigner would understand it, maybe only Malaysian Chinese who could listen to Chinese could understand it. Later, the first screening was a film selection from Rotterdam, the Netherlands. He loves short films. I was actually quite surprised, I thought he could understand? Later, it was first screened in Europe, starting in Rotterdam, which I think is probably the most distant audience, and they may not be able to distinguish between Malaysian Chinese and Chinese natives. In fact, in the work, I am talking about my own situation, this thing is originally a cultural commonality, at the beginning I was just talking about my own idea, and I did not deliberately talk about Malaysian culture. Of course, when you are in Europe, such as the Muslim prayers you can hear in the background, and the behavior of eating on the side of the road, they are all exotic.
I think it's a very delicate thing, and the expression is cultural. There are always a lot of trivial things in the movie that come from around you. So this detail is important. Life customs like religious beliefs, these are things that you may not be able to grasp some details without your own personal experience, so for many directors, the story is placed in their hometown.
Usually I look at some works of my peers, how to evaluate?
I'll watch a lot of movies from my younger peers, and I'm very sure I can see something new, something more enlightening. So I've been actively doing judging over the years. In fact, because I often shoot movies, usually the film festival invites me to be a judge, and I will go. Because that's the only time I've ever had a chance to watch a movie, or I'm going to see what kids want.
I also pay more attention to the literature of my own country. I still like to read books and write novels, not for the sake of making movies, I prefer the expression of words. Later, I turned to movies, because I am not lonely in filmmaking, and it is very easy to mix with a group of friends, even if you don't work, you can't see it very well. I feel like if I choose words, maybe I'll be lonely all the time, and I like to be a group of friends doing things together.
I will pay attention to my favorite directors and writers, many of them are brilliant, and sometimes I read novels to find a story of a certain theme.
Thank you two directors ~ tomorrow we will have a screening of "Wanza's Rain Boots", and congratulations to director Lahuaga's "Wanza's Rain Boots" is scheduled for July 19th, everyone can see it in the theater!
Books are delivered
across
disaster
pear
jujube
guide
perform
sign
name
fund
horse
come
west
second
straight
Writer: Chen Cuimei
"Cross-Disaster Pear Jujube" is divided into five series, the first series "Film Notes" records Chen Cuimei's film world and memory; the second series "Small Stories" is Chen Cuimei's fictional story and script; the third series "So and So" presents Chen Cuimei's sensual and playful thoughts; series 4 "Tragic Green Times" contains articles written by Chen Cuimei between 1997 and 2002; Series 5 "Less is not more" is a work from 1994 to 1996 in middle school.
Just like director Chen Cuimei's consistent text, the natural breath of life opens up a free whisper about Malaysia for you.
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