Baseball is a homecoming sport. Home base is also known as home base, and running home after hitting the ball means scoring.
Awesome! "Teenagers" is a story about returning home—how a group of troubled teenagers use baseball to smooth out where they come from and find their home.
In 2015, former Chinese national baseball team captain Sun Lingfeng founded the strong baseball angel baseball base, he recruited more than a dozen 7 to 10-year-old difficult teenagers from poor areas across the country, most of them are left-behind children and orphans, Sun Lingfeng wants to use 10 years so that they can participate in national and international competitions, become professional players, or as sports specialties into the university, the worst can also stay in the strong baseball angels as a coach, have a job, change their established, difficult to change fate.
In October 2017, documentary filmmaker Xu Huijing walked into the base and began to record the story. In July 2020, "Awesome! "Junior" won the Best Documentary Award at the 14th FIRST Youth Film Festival, and the Douban score was once as high as 9.3. At that time, after the screening of the film, the applause of hundreds of spectators lasted for five minutes, and director Xu Huijing burst into tears during the post-screening interview.
On December 11, "Awesome! "The Boy" was released nationwide, in stark contrast to the limited schedule of films – far exceeding the attendance of films in the same period. After watching the film, one viewer wrote on the film review website: I will remember the tree and the face in the last shot.
About that tree and that face, here's "Stick! The narration of "Teenager" director Xu Huijing——
Wen | Xu Qing
Edited | Golden Stone
New stuff
Shoot "Awesome! Teenagers", we did not have a research period, the day before went to the love baseball base to see, the next day to shoot.
At that time, we happened to be shooting another film in Beijing, and it was almost finished, and the people and equipment were in Beijing. A colleague of the company knew Sun Lingfeng, the captain of the former national baseball team, and said to stop by to see it. At the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Sun Lingfeng led the Chinese baseball team to eighth place, which was a historic breakthrough. After retiring, he founded this love baseball base in 2015, hoping to help some troubled teenagers change their lives through baseball.
When we went, the base was on the outskirts of Changping, Beijing. The base is not big, the front is the living area, the middle is the canteen, walk back through a small door, just to the backyard, there is a long strip of field, not a standard baseball field, but the ground is covered with blankets, just used as a baseball field.
The kids were training, everyone was wearing a baseball suit and was in good spirits. Baseball is a middle-class sport in the minds of many people, so it's hard to associate the children in front of you with poverty, but most of them are de facto orphans, either left-behind children, their parents are not around, or their father or mother has passed away.
Sun Lingfeng was with the children
As a public welfare project, the criteria for recruiting players at the Love Baseball Base are simple - poor families, between the ages of 7 and 12, healthy, able to reach average height, and sandbags can be thrown far. But in fact, because these children are from poor families and their nutritional status is not good, many children's physique is not up to the level of children of the same age.
On the sidelines, Sun Lingfeng introduced us to each child one by one, but at that time we could not match the number. Later, during intermission, many children were playing around the coach, and I noticed a child sitting quietly on a broken sofa in the rest area, playing with a small yellow dinosaur. His eyes were very melancholy, there was an inexplicable sadness, he felt that there were many things hidden in his heart, and that look touched me very much and made me feel very distressed - this child is Xiao Shuang.
Small double
Before Xiao Shuang was born, his father suddenly suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and died, and his mother left after giving birth to him and his twin brother. The family originally wanted to give Xiao Shuang away, but because he was born too small and his head was only the size of a fist, he stayed in the incubator for many months and sent his brother away. Xiao Shuang was first raised by his uncle, who died and was sent to his aunt's house, and a few years later, his aunt also died, and he was sent to the second uncle's house. In 2015, when Sun Lingfeng went to pick him up, he held the telephone pole and cried that he did not want to go, and kicked Sun Lingfeng, at that time, he thought that his second uncle did not want him.
After arriving at the base, Xiao Shuang did not eat or drink for a long time, nor did he communicate with people, it can be said that this child experienced things that many people had to experience for seventy or eighty years before he was ten years old.
For these children, coming out of their hometown and learning baseball in Beijing, the future possibility is established. Whether it is to enter the national team or enter the university in the future, and later become a baseball player, or a baseball coach, this path is open. At the same time, the base is also a social aspect, a cut, a group of children who have no way out, into the cruel field of sports that is not to lose or win, and you can see all kinds of problems, education and growth, villages and cities, and so on.
But this time, I didn't want to just find the problem and present the problem, I wanted to turn the problem into the background, to record how some people solved the problem - this is also a new thing I want to try.
Children at the Changping Training Base
family
When we were filming, there were 15 boys between the ages of 7 and 12 at the base.
Every morning, the children wake up at about 7 a.m. and go to culture classes at 8 a.m. The base is close to the school, just a few minutes walk. Come back at noon, train in the afternoon, and write homework in the evening after training.
Usually, the person in charge of the children's training is Zhang Jinxin, who is Sun Lingfeng's coach, and the children call him Master. Shi Ye was the former principal of Fengtai Baseball School, taught baseball for more than 40 years, led the Chinese junior baseball team to the world championship four times, and 50% of the members of the national baseball team followed him to learn baseball.
Master Zhang Jinxin
The base cooks chef Li, the children have at least three dishes per meal, there is meat every day, and they pay attention to the combination of meat and vegetarian. The children had to drink milk every day, train until five or six o'clock in the afternoon, each person had a bag of milk, and after drinking it, they practiced for a while. There is also an Aunt Li in the base, who is mainly responsible for washing clothes and washing them every day, because the clothes are easily dirty when children train, and they are changed every day.
Teacher Guo Zhongjian is a volunteer of the base, he is a graduate of the Department of Civil Engineering of Tsinghua University, in charge of the children's life and academic performance, every day after dinner to gather the children together to write homework, and then make up lessons for the children, make up English, make up language, and spot check homework. He also got a small classroom in his dormitory, with a small chalkboard. He has his own company, which is to make environmental protection equipment, the company has been running, and he has a relatively free time as the boss.
I asked him, what do you think of your family coming here? He said that his father didn't quite understand, and felt that engaging in public welfare was a matter for the government or related departments. But Mr. Guo has more of a complex, he was originally the captain of the baseball and softball team of Tsinghua University, he learned from a young age, he wants to consume his limited life to the place where he is willing to consume.
Coach Guo Zhongjian
We shoot for a long time, going once a month for 15 days.
In fact, when you start to slowly contact these children, you will find that what really attracts you is not what kind of difficult situation these children are in, but the state in which you can see people in this situation.
In addition to Xiao Shuang, many children have impressed me. For example, Li Haixin, he is the youngest, the highest emotional intelligence, and the best relationship with the master.
Li Haixin's life is also very painful, his father was 20 years old in a private gold mine accident, fell into a 30-meter deep mine, many parts of the body crushing fractures. After being discharged from the hospital, he could not do too much manual work, but he has been working on construction sites ever since to support the family. Every time Li Haixin comes home, his father is very happy, and he hopes that Li Haixin can change his fate through baseball, not like himself.
At the base, Li Haixin was amusing with the master every day, and the horse ass was filmed very accurately. When I first went to shoot, I saw him with his master, who was smoking a cigarette, and said to him: You grow up quickly, it's too slow. This means that Li Haixin is not training well all day. Li Haixin said, Master, you should smoke quickly, after you smoke, I will grow up. It means you shut up, don't say it, wait for you to play with me after smoking. He could use very naïve words to scare the master back, and the master was still very happy.
The second from the right is Li Haixin
Shi Ye is a native of Beijing, usually lives in the base, and returns home once a month or two. He likes to sing, has a smart phone, and the whole people have K songs, except that there is a TV in this canteen, you can choose songs, get a microphone and sing. Usually, when there is nothing to do after eating, the master brings the children together to sing K. The master likes to sing red songs, teaches children to sing a lot of red songs, and "if the wine is dry and sells nothing". In short, when the master is there, the children all sing red songs, the master sings everything as soon as he leaves, all kinds of popular songs, when the master returns, he will change to "If the wine is dry and sells nothing".
Winter at the base is a bit more difficult than in other seasons. There is no heating in the children's dormitory, and the temperature of the air conditioner is still not very good, and many times the children sleep together in two people, so that it is warmer. So finding someone to sleep with every day is a big deal, and everyone should discuss it. Sometimes, Li Haixin has to ask 10 people a night if they want to sleep with me.
During the New Year, the children generally stay in the base, because some children can be picked up, but some children can't go back, Coach Sun and Master don't want everyone to have a psychological gap, so they go back to their hometown after the New Year together - in fact, after coming to Beijing, the children regard the baseball base as home.
Intruders
In the beginning, we shot in the form of group portraits, shooting people on a large scale. But after following a lot of children, we found that this group already has relatively stable rules and orders, and lacks an interloper-like character who can string together everyone.
So we kept telling the coach that you had to tell us when you went to pick up the new kids. But the time to pick up The Sloppy Tiger was too tight, and we didn't catch up, so we didn't shoot to pick up the Sloppy Tiger.
When we went to the base to see Sloppy, it felt like another of our main characters had finally appeared.
Just arrived at the base for a day or two, sloppy to make the base flying dog jump. Everyone circled around him, didn't shoot him, he also came to us, dragged you to ask this and that, showed his various skills, stood upside down, turned over, rubbed his nose with the pick rod we used to shoot, fought with the children for a while, and made people cry again.
Show yourself sloppy in front of the camera (right)
Ma Hu is from Xihaigu in Ningxia, and he told us that when he was in his hometown in Ningxia, his nickname was Ranger. When he was three months old, his mother ran away from home after a fight with his father, who had been selling lamb kebabs for many years and rarely came home, and he grew up with his grandmother.
He told us a story that one year his father suddenly brought back a woman and a little boy, and the next day, the three of them went out on motorcycles and left sloppy to stay at home hungry for a day. Dad came back and told Sloppy hu that he would take you next time. But Sloppy said he would never go again. Later, Dad went out to work again, and the woman also took the little boy away one day, when Grandma was at her aunt's house in Xinjiang, Sloppy was hungry at home for three days, and Grandma came back to eat.
Sloppy and Grandma
So, sloppy is very edible. When I first arrived at the base, I could eat three bowls of rice in one meal, and I would even vomit myself. We often see him running on the training ground with a round belly.
He likes to be the boss and enjoys the feeling of being respected and protected by others. But at the base, only the person who plays the ball well can be the boss. But he didn't train well, the other team members didn't obey him, he couldn't be the boss and he was very disappointed, and told me that the society here is too big.
Like to be sloppy when you're the boss
In fact, Ma Hu is a very kind and soft child, but he doesn't know how to express it. Once, he had a conflict with Xiao Shuang and told Xiao Shuang that your father was hanging there. Got beaten up by Small Doubles. He ran to complain to Teacher Guo and was taught a lesson by Teacher Guo. Teacher Guo told him about Xiao Shuang's family, and his look changed, and he felt that he had done something wrong.
Once, other children went to Shanghai to participate in an activity, left him in the base, he was there with two children running around with each other, chasing and suddenly returning, performing in front of the camera, and said a word, my name is Sloppy, from the intersection, lost, picked up by the people of the Love Baseball Foundation.
In an interview, I said that from the outside, sloppy looks like a bad boy, but that's just a way for him to protect himself, he doesn't want others to see his vulnerable side, he just wants others to feel his strength, like a hedgehog, no one should approach me, I'm strong.
Once, Sloppy Tiger was playing with children in the corridor of the dormitory, in fact, because he was very afraid of the dark, and did not dare to sleep alone at night, but the children in his dormitory did not want to sleep with him, they all left, he told people to go back, people did not go, he was angry. When he lived on the top bunk, he often tied a seat belt to the sides of the bed at night before going to bed, and then slept with a large white doll.
Sloppy tiger sleeping with the big white in his arms
In order to figure out the background of the environment in which they grew up and understand the logic of their thinking and behavior from the perspective of the children, we also went to the children's hometown to shoot.
In Xihaigu, we met Sloppy's dad. He was sloppy at the age of seventeen or eighteen, loved wandering when he was young, selling barbecues outside, and rarely coming home. He actually wanted to go back to Ningxia and open a barbecue restaurant or something else in his hometown, but he couldn't come back. As the previous generation of left-behind children, these fathers also have their own dilemmas, he has to go out to work, solve the family's livelihood problems, but also consider the education and companionship of children.
Sloppy in his heart will actually complain about his father, he will say, I don't hate my mother, I hate my father, this is all caused by him. But when his dad opened the short video software to play music, he ran over to jump "Motorcycle Shake" happily. He is contradictory, very aggressive on the one hand, but very fragile and soft on the other.
In the process of filming, we also need to interview the children, usually the children are gone, and we let one of them stay and do the interview on the sidelines. For the children, it is like a ritual, a ceremony to receive us from within.
Ma Hu liked us the most to leave him behind because that way he could eat ramen with us. He loves to eat ramen noodles the most, and he can eat two bowls at a time. One afternoon we asked him to stay, and that day the sun was so good that it could shine on his face, and after sitting on the sidelines and talking, he started all kinds of performances, dancing, turning his head. It was dark, he was playing and walking back, from the venue back to the dormitory, singing as he walked, that day, he was singing, Mom, Mom, I miss you, the sky after you left has been raining...
Walk sloppily on the way back to the dormitory
Where to come and where to go
I cried twice throughout the shoot, which had never been seen before in previous shoots.
One of the times he cried was when he was shooting Xiao Shuang, when he talked about his birth.
We tried to interview Xiao Shuang twice, the first time let Xiao Shuang stay in the dormitory in the morning, I told him that you don't go to the stadium to train this morning, play here with a few brothers, he said okay, just sit down and talk about his life when he was a child. But it is difficult for children to enter that state, one moment to make a grimace, one moment to sleep, one moment to not know what to do, we photographers are waiting to fall asleep, waiting for two hours is not enough, had to forget.
After a day or two, I asked him to stay with Li Haixin. Because Li Haixin was very familiar with him, they were related, and the two families were not far away, both in Laiyuan. According to the generational division, Li Haixin should be called Xiao Shuang Uncle. When Li Haixin was there, it seemed that Xiao Shuang could open himself more. The two of them lay on the bed and messed around, fighting each other, throwing pillows, and Xiao Shuang told the camera about his life.
When I was born, my mother ran away, I had a twin brother, the family could not afford to raise us both, they wanted to send me away, but I was born too young, others did not want me, and then they replaced my brother and left me. Originally, the family said they were going to bury me, but my uncle didn't let me, and I was almost buried. Another time was when the children went to the United States to compete.
Before going to the United States to compete, the base was facing demolition, and the children were very uncomfortable, and Sloppy had been wiping away tears. The master comforted them and said that after going to the United States, it was more important to play well and come back with a place. Although it is comforting, in fact, the children are under a lot of pressure.
When the official game was played in the United States, the captain Dabao, Sloppy, and several other team members were overaged, and the small pair with an injured arm became the main force. The kids were very good in the first three sets, leading 1-0 all the way. By the fourth inning, The little double's pitching error allowed the opponent to return home runs to score consecutive points, and the children did their best, but still lost.
After the game, Xiao Shuang cried on the sidelines, and Ma Hu comforted him with a box of hamburgers and fries, and he cried and shouted that there was no chance, only one chance! At that time, I was also crying, but the cameras blocked me.
After losing the game, the little double cried on the sidelines
After returning from the United States, the shooting was basically over, and I also began to cut the film. In the process, I got the news that Xiao Shuang left the base and went home, because his second uncle had stomach cancer, and Xiao Shuang did not want others to say that he was a white-eyed wolf, nor did he want to lose his second uncle, so he wanted to go back to take care of his second uncle.
When I was shooting before, I saw Xiao Shuang's second uncle, who had an adopted daughter who worked outside when he was not married, and a baby girl who was picked up in the garbage heap of the train station was picked up and brought back for Xiao Shuang's grandmother to keep. Later, this adopted daughter grew up to go to art school, the tuition fee is very expensive, the second uncle needs to go to work to earn his daughter's tuition, if Xiao Shuang is at home, he can't go out to work. So he sent Xiao Shuang to the baseball base.
Coach Sun Lingfeng very much wanted to bring Xiao Shuang back, but he suddenly had a heart attack and was hospitalized for surgery, and after being discharged from the hospital for a period of recuperation, he wanted to deal with Xiao Shuang's matter, so I followed him to Xiao Shuang's house again.
The small double who resolutely refuses to return to the base
That time, Xiao Shuang's attitude was very resolute, refusing to return to the base, and he also had a big temper tantrum with his second uncle. Honestly, I wasn't particularly able to understand why Xiao Shuang was desperate to give up baseball and go home. But during the pandemic this year, I figured it out.
I started making Awesome! My son was 3 years old when he was a teenager, and now he's almost 6 years old. Because I travel a lot, I rarely spend time with him, and I also feel that he doesn't need me much, just his mother. He has been staying at home during the pandemic this year, and my lover and I have to take turns taking care of him. After taking care of it for a while, there was a bit of a change in our relationship, he became needy of me and I felt like a father.
I understand one thing better, what children really need is the companionship of affection. Sloppy and Xiaoshuang, the root of their problems, are the lack of family affection caused by extreme insecurity. The reason why Xiao Shuang firmly stayed in his hometown was because he had experienced too many changes since he was a child, watching his relatives leave one by one, and family affection was what he needed most in his heart.
This feeling of extreme insecurity because of what was once missing is something I have never experienced. Although I also grew up in the countryside, unlike other children whose parents worked outside the home, in my family, there are parents who get up at 4 o'clock in the morning to cook. When I was a child, I watched those children eat instant noodles, and I was particularly envious, thinking that they were too happy, because instant noodles were high-end consumer goods at that time.
But in fact, I dare to do all kinds of attempts at different periods of growing up, whether it is to go to college, to be an unemployed vagrant, not to work, or to shoot films, all because my sense of security is very thick, and I know that I have support from my family behind me. Because my parents are around, I feel the traditional countryside, people are dedicated to working in the fields, relatives live nearby, and life is very complete. For children whose parents are not around, it is different, their lives are broken and empty.
Xiao Shuang and Xu Huijing during filming
After feeling that I understood Xiao Shuang, I also adjusted the end of the film. Originally, I ended with a sloppy singing of Zhang Zhenyue's "Goodbye", but later, I waved Xiao Shuang to the second uncle under the big tree in the village and said you don't leave me at the end of the whole film.
Inside the film, the tree appears three times, it is a very tall pine, it grows very slowly, it is hundreds of years old. In fact, in many northern rural areas, there is a tree, a magical tree, and this tree will be related to your hometown. I think it's the coordinate system of the family and the hometown in people's hearts, marking where you come from.
It's also very similar to baseball. Baseball home base is also called home base, when the child is training, he will always shout home base, home base, because according to the rules, run a lap, go home once, get a point, therefore, eventually need to go back to home base, all need to go home.
In fact, making documentaries is more about solving my own problems. How do I understand my past, to understand my ancestors, to understand the place where I went out. But what ultimately needs to be solved is the question of where our hearts belong—where our homes really are.
Xiao Shuang's hometown was linked to the tree, no matter where he was born, or what his relatives could bring him, that was where he could breathe freely and shout loudly, that was the world that belonged to him.
Little double and hometown tree
grow
Awesome! Later in "Junior", we did it for almost a year and a half. During that time, I worked every day from ten o'clock in the morning until twelve o'clock in the evening, cutting at least 40 versions, two of which were always retained, one was a clip of sloppy singing "Motorcycle Shake" and the other was a clip of a small double-inserted pine branch.
That time we followed Xiao Shuang back to his hometown, at the top of a hill, he circled around a big tree, and after a while he found a handful of pine branches from nowhere, tried to insert them into the holes of the big tree, and fell several times in the process, but we kept shooting, shooting until he put the handful of pine branches in.
At the beginning of the shooting, I used to hope to make the children a legend, that is, they were very powerful and cattle, and finally got the world's first and second, which made us very anxious. Every day I hope that Sloppy can learn to control himself, but he always speaks better than he does. We also hope that Xiaoshuang can be stronger and braver, but he still can't move to make emotions and cry his nose. We also want Li Haixin to be less playful, but he plays every day, catching more than a hundred snails in one afternoon and then lining them up.
In fact, in the matter of growth, it is not okay to be anxious. I think it may be because we grow up and become not simple, adults think that everything has to have results, pay is to gain, training to win, we give children too many expectations.
Master has a sentence that has a great impact on me, he said, educate children not to be in a hurry, but to keep an eye on one thing to the end, keep staring, and some changes will slowly occur. It is also true that the time when the little twins cried when they lost in the United States, I could feel that they had grown up all at once.
Master this person is very interesting, usually he ignores me, two nights ago suddenly called me, I was shocked. He said he read some reports, one of which said that they led the team to Japan to participate in the competition, and Sun Lingfeng picked up a wallet, did not put it in his pocket, and gave it to the Japanese driver. The master said that this information was not correct, not to the Japanese driver, but to the Japanese escort. That report also wrote about the China-Japan friendship match, which is also not correct, it is a match between Beijing and Japan's sister cities. Master thought that I wrote this manuscript, so I quickly went to dock and revise it.
He is still at the base with the children. Over the years, the base has finally moved to Tongzhou after several turns, and the new venue is very large, and training is not a problem. The number of children has also increased from 15 to 60, including 25 girls from Daliangshan.
Sloppy has become taller and thinner, more able to eat, and can eat more than a hundred dumplings in one meal. The wildness in him is not completely gone, but he knows what to do at different times and on different occasions, can control himself, and communicate with others from you to you. When he interacted with the audience at the Xining First Film Festival, he saw himself in the film and said, I have changed now. But then I felt very envious of my childhood self.
Director and sloppy at the FIRST Film Festival
Xiao Shuang also returned to the team not long ago. But perhaps because of the poor nutrition after he went back, he basically did not grow up, and the players who were shorter than him before are now taller than him. In terms of age, he should be divided into U15 groups (12 years old and over, under 15 years old), but now he can only train with the U12 group (10 years old and over, under 12 years old).
Actually, "Awesome! "Teenagers" is not a sports documentary, but a story of a group of children living and surviving in a certain environment. I very much hope to photograph them until they turn 18 and continue to document their growth – in one of the speeches, I quoted Herzog as saying: The story of you bringing an egg is just a fact that everyone can see, but you bring a chicken that breaks out of its shell, and this is the story of life.
I want my film to be seen by more people, and I want to show hope, because everyone needs hope too much. I also sincerely hope that baseball can bring them happiness, make up for the lack of heart, let them gain the ability and dignity to survive, and have more people to help and care for their growth.
Now small doubles and sloppy
Resources:
"Shoot" Awesome! "When I was a teenager, I was a new father, there was the pressure of life, and there was also a disappointment in the documentary", a seat yixi
Awesome! Teenagers" Special Topic, "Cold and Warm Life"
"Xu Huijing: The Dignity of Chinese Films in the Year of the Epidemic, Started by Documentaries", Director DirecTube
"I think the documentary filmmaker is the kindest person in the world", Eye Open Eye Eye Eatitizer