In the 1985 movie "Youth Festival", there is a Dai grandmother named "Dai". She is nearly ninety years old, and she does not speak much, but she can shock the heroine. A lot of important scenes revolve around her. The difficulty of this role is too great, and her gesture is not only to make people feel that this is a Dai old man who has lived in Dai township for nearly 90 years, but also to make people feel a great power of kindness and love in the action without lines.
96-year-old Dai grandmother Yu Yan
Director Zhang Nunxin is determined to find a real Dai elderly man from the Dai family village to play this role. In the end, the crew found the 96-year-old Dai grandmother YuFang. This old man is deaf, his eyes are not flowering, and he is absolutely extremely comfortable when the old man shoots films, dozens of shots have always been a success, and he is praised as the "meritorious actor" of the film crew!
Above is a small tidbit from the filming of the movie "Youth Festival". During filming, its name was "Far Away".
"Youth Festival" is produced by the Beijing Film Academy Youth Film Studio, directed by Zhang Nunxin, starring Li Fengxu, and performed by Feng Yuanzheng, Song Tao and others. The film has won the Special Jury Award at the 1986 Scitech International Film Festival in France and the "Top Ten Chinese Films" at the 6th Hong Kong Film Festival Academy Awards.
The film is adapted from Zhang Manling's novella "There is a Beautiful Place".
Directed by Zhang Nunxin
There is also an episode about the film's photography:
In 1984, the college supported young teachers and arranged for Mu Deyuan to join the crew of "Youth Festival" directed by Zhang Nunxin as a cinematographer.
In the case that the first draft of the script failed to pass the review, Mu Deyuan combined his understanding of Yunnan and rewrote several scenes. He didn't go out for seven days and finished all the shots on the side of the script, more than 400 in total. "Youth Festival" brought Great artistic gains to Mu Deyuan, "There are many scenes filmed later, I forgot, I almost remember all the details of this play, really the first play is so important, it will make you remember it for the rest of your life."
A split-shot script drawn by Mudder
During the filming of the film, there was also an interesting "examination phenomenon": the five actors who participated in the film that year had to take their own important examinations.
Li Fengxu, who plays the female protagonist Li Chun, and Feng Yuanzheng, who plays her lover, both applied for the Beijing Film Academy, and the male protagonist Guo Jianguo and Wen Liaohong, who played Wabao, had to take the exam. This is not to mention, the cowherd baby An Hu in the film is a primary school student in the local rural area, and he also has to take the final exam.
Didn't you find it interesting to learn about these shooting tidbits from that year?
To this day, "Youth Festival", an experimental film with both national characteristics and modern meaning, is still regarded as a rare classic.