The Hong Kong film "Uncle Uncle", which pays attention to the love life of the elderly gay group, has just won the Best Actor Award at the 39th Hong Kong Film Awards.
The film has also been shortlisted for the 2019 Busan Film Festival and Taiwan's Golden Horse Awards, and this year it was shortlisted for the Panorama Unit of the Berlin Film Festival, and was also nominated for the Teddy Bear Award for focusing on LGBT films, which is one of the Chinese films of the year that cannot be ignored.
Official poster of "Uncle Uncle"
Director Yang Yaokai has long been concerned about gay images in the Chinese-speaking world, and he has not only filmed two gay films on "I Love Breakers" and "Beijing Meets New York", but also co-founded the Hong Kong Gay Film Festival.
Director Yang Yaokai was exclusively interviewed by ifeng Films at the Berlin Film Festival
In the film, there are group portraits of Hong Kong's local elderly gay groups, each with their own distinct personality, and these vivid characters are from the director's investigation.
"Uncle Shu" was first inspired by Jiang Shaoqi's social survey "The Biography of a Male Man: An Oral History of Older Gay Men in Hong Kong" by Jiang Shaoqi of the Department of Sociology of the University of Hong Kong.
Cover of "The Biography of a Man and a Man: Oral History of Older Gay Men in Hong Kong"
The book interviews men aged 60-80 in Hong Kong who are under great pressure from society and family in Hong Kong, but are often ignored by the mainstream media.
Speaking of their own stories, they are helpless and sad, and some interviewees told the director that they would run to their mother's grave from time to time and cry and confess their sexuality.
The film is a two-character pattern, with seventy-year-old Bai and sixty-five-year-old Hai.
Bai is an elderly hunter who has driven a taxi all his life, has a happy family, and is full of children and grandchildren;
Hai was also married when he was young, but divorced very early, pulled his son up alone, and now has three generations in the same house, and is also a member of the Association of Old People's Comrades in addition to retirement, in order to fight for the Rainbow Nursing Home as his mission.
Stills from "Uncle Uncle"
The two meet in a park that was where gay groups dissipated their loneliness before the rise of dating apps.
The first encounter was not very in tune, but under the relationship, a faint affection ignited between the two.
Both have a well-behaved family life, Bai even lives with his wife and respects each other, and the date with the sea can only be squeezed out of the sponge, and what the two hope for is to squeeze out a meal of time together.
The sense of small and dense space between the cities of Hong Kong highlights the hard-won nature of this love affair.
The film has always been very problematic in the choice of cast, finding two weighty male actors to play gay roles is already very difficult, many well-known male stars are worried about damaging their male tough screen image, have excused themselves to refuse to act.
After careful consideration, the director was attracted by Taibao in "Bright Time" and Yuan Fuhua in "Trish", and finalized the role of the elderly gay couple.
Yuan Fuhua played the image of the helpless old father sandwiched between his lover and his son very vividly, so that the audience could not help but be soft and soft;
Tai Bao performed the feeling of the gap between rumors and lust, and his eyes revealed full of longing, while at the same time mixed with the restraint of "just stop", which can be called a well-deserved movie emperor performance.
Taibao's appearance in "Bright Time"
Yuan Fuhua (first from left) played Brother Bell in "Trish"
The sunset love in the movie is condensed as light as water through the gentleman's friendship, and the whole play is as good as the old song "Breeze and Drizzle".
Although there is no young man's thunder to stir the earth fire, there is a direct power that strikes people's hearts, making the viewer sigh endlessly and cannot let go for a long time.
The director throws a lot of questions to the audience, between love and family, which is more important?
After decades of hard work for the family, do people have the right to pursue their own happiness in their old age?
In an unhappy marriage, every family member is a tragic figure, who should be held accountable?
There is no living flesh, but the feeling of life, old age, illness and death is so real. The film gives endless care to the double marginalized elderly gay community.
Society needs such cameras to aim at marginalized groups, but the lack of commercial elements has made the performance of films in financing and distribution less optimistic, especially the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, which has had a significant impact on the promotion and distribution of cinema films in this period.
During the Berlin Film Festival, Yang Yaokai, the director of "Uncle Uncle", gave an exclusive interview to ifeng Films.
01
Affected by the new crown epidemic, the distribution of movies is not optimistic
ifeng Movie: Because of the impact of the new crown epidemic, many flights have been cancelled, have you had any difficulties in coming to Berlin? Will future film festival screenings also be affected?
Yang Yaokai: This disease developed like this, at first Italy could not fly, I was worried that there would be flight cancellations, so I came to Berlin a week early.
There were a lot of film festivals that invited me, and then there was a london film festival that invited me to show, because when they were doing publicity, if the director said that he would come and do post-screening interviews, the tickets would sell better, and I didn't know whether to answer or not.
Director Yang Yaokai
ifeng Films: The Berlin film market has also been affected to some extent this year, have you paid attention to the international sales of "Uncle Uncle"?
Yang Yaokai: This is our third film festival, and it is not difficult to market this film, but it is still difficult to distribute commercially.
The promotion of the lgbt issue in Asia itself is difficult, and many viewers are looking forward to seeing handsome men and beautiful women in the play, and our film is focused on the elderly, which is even more difficult. Our story gives a lot of attention to family and humanity, and I hope that the audience can have more.
My international distribution agency was The German film company Fins Boutique, which was sold to Caichang International Multimedia Co., Ltd. in Taiwan, while the Distribution in Hong Kong was represented by Gaoxian Film Co., Ltd.
There are more than a dozen theaters in Taiwan that will be screened, and there are four or five theaters in Taipei, Taichung, Tainan, and Kaohsiung. Because we have Golden Horse Award nominations, it will be better, but now affected by the epidemic, the specific situation of Taiwan's film industry is not clear, but in general, it is normal for the income of theaters to drop by 30%.
In Hong Kong, we are selling to Gao Xian, there will be some promotion plans in March, and now it will be postponed until April 20th, if the government orders the closure of the theater, the filmmakers will not be able to do anything.
02
The emotional relationship between the Chinese is all hidden in a table of meals
ifeng Movie: There are a lot of scenes in the movie selling vegetables and eating, do you feel that the way the elderly fall in love is like that?
Yang Yaokai: Westerners are very good at saying that I love you, I am proud of you, and the Chinese society, especially the people born in that era, are very unspeakable about showing care and love, and the Chinese way to express love is through diet, and your mother will ask you, what you want to eat, what you love to eat, I will make it for you to eat.
Hong Kong people are very busy, there is little time to communicate, eating is the main way of communication, when the family gathering, everyone will exchange their recent situation, you can also feel how the relationship between family members is, the drama of eating reflects a lot of things.
Ah Bo and Ah Hai two people to drag, buy vegetables to cook, why there is a dinner scene, because ordinary people are in love, especially two people who are not recognized by the outside world can have the opportunity to eat a meal, it is simply a dream scene.
ifeng Movie: Both male characters have been kidnapped by the Chinese concept of family, there is no way to pursue love and freedom, do you think love and freedom are more important, or is the concept of family the most important?
Yang Yaokai: Ah Bai and Ah Hai in the play, they are people of that era, their educational background and family environment are different. And I grew up in a foreign country and realized early on what I liked. I feel like everyone has to do what they want to do and families should respect their decisions.
ifeng Movie: In the movie, the wives of the two uncles are actually the most innocent, how do you think we should prevent this kind of tragedy from happening?
Yang Yaokai: There are many institutions that will help gay and lesbian marriages to solve the marital pressure from the family, but this is not a cure.
If society can face up to the gay community, the family will not exert too much pressure on its children, and the discrimination will gradually decrease, and such a tragedy will not happen again.
03
Pay attention to the equal rights of the Chinese world
ifeng Film: Your gay image, like "Trish", focuses on the double marginalized groups, which is very important for equal rights in the Chinese world, but how can such a film be financed in Hong Kong?
Yang Yaokai: "Trish" is different, its production company is very large, it is Gu Tianle's company. Our film, there is no big company, there is no big star in the cast, to complete the film, the actual operation is very difficult. We have applied for the Hong Kong Film Fund and the Hong Kong Arts Development Fund.
The aspect of finding money in a movie is very difficult, the problem of distribution is very difficult, although many people like this movie, but distribution is difficult to do, and the risk is also very large.
Stills from "Trish"
ifeng Movie: What is the situation of marriage equality in Hong Kong?
Yang Yaokai: Equal rights in Hong Kong are to be changed through legal channels and need to be promoted through the Legislative Council. The case of Leung Chun-gang and his same-sex partner Scott Adams is important, the two people have been married in the UK, but in Hong Kong do not recognize, the partner's health insurance can not be enjoyed, and then they sued the government, the result is won, the road to equal rights in Hong Kong is very helpful.
Liang Zhengang (right) and his same-sex partner Scott Adams (left)
ifeng Movies: Is there any idea of going north to the mainland to make a similar theme movie?
Yang Yaokai: Actually, there are many interesting issues on the mainland, because the mainland has a lot of different histories and cultures, which are not well known to the West and the world. Although I am more interested in the LGBT genre, I don't have to shoot the LGBT theme, the protagonist can be a guy, but the issues in the movie don't have to focus on whether he is a guy or not, he can also encounter a lot of other issues.
ifeng Movies: What are the plans for the next movie?
Yang Yaokai: No, this film has just been produced, preparations began in 2016, it was only finished in 2018, busan last October, after the film began, a lot of promotional things to consider, there have been scripts that need to be shot in foreign countries, but I want to focus on Asia, so I didn't consider it.