Nightcap with Some Manifestations of the South
Interview with Zhiyi Wang, director of Some Manifestations of the South
To somebody who hasn’t seen the film, how would you introduce it?
A rather simple sentence to introduce the story itself: an unusual assignment for a young man paid to honour other people’s dead. Regarding other than the story, I am happy to mention that I have made some attempts in the visual storytelling of this film that I think may be very interesting. I can guarantee that you will see something different in the film, since it’s a wonderful thing to make this film as the director and cinematographer at the same time.
Where did the idea of making a short about people who clean ancestors’ cemetery on behalf of clients came from?
When I was very young, I moved away from my hometown with my parents. In my hometown culture, ancestor worship is an extremely important part. This tradition requires us to return to our hometown to clean the ancestral cemetery every year on Ching Ming Festival; Ching Ming Festival is the most important festival for us, even surpassing the Spring Festival. Occasionally, I discovered that there are people who are hired to do this on behalf of others. I wondered why and then I realised that I am inextricably linked to all of this. The reason why my family left was because my parents wanted to leave this undeveloped land to find a better life for themselves and me. We succeeded in having a prosperous life elsewhere, returning regularly like migratory birds. I know we are not the only ones. In this way, after many years, our hometown is still in decline, and leaving is still the main theme of young people’s growth. Making this short makes me feel as if I am standing on another trajectory in life: what if I were such a person and had never left this small town? Now I choose to leave.
Did you gather a lot of testimony and information about this service during your preparation?
There are not many people engaged in this service. Most of them simply refuse to communicate. So, much of the information is obtained by observation. On the other hand, besides them, there are more young people trapped in other jobs that have no prospects in this environment, I have overlapped them to some extent. I did make certain adjustments to the way they took over work, because I wanted to restore the close connection between people in that environment.
How do you hope audiences will react to the film?
I first hope that the visual presentations of these places in my hometown will impress them. These visual presentations are carefully designed to perfectly restore the looming place in my mind. The environment creates people, and people act on the environment. I believe those impressions can help audiences to enter that world and begin to want to understand those people and what is happening there, just like me.
What do you think the future holds for short films?
The mobile Internet and social network apps will definitely lead to shorter and shorter and more entertaining short films. Those may be different from the short films we are talking about right now. But there are also more and more new filmmakers. When they want to try some more authoritative creations, we can be extremely optimistic about the richness and groundbreaking expression of short films.
If we were to go back into lockdown, what cultural delights would you recommend to alleviate our boredom?
Writing, if writing can be considered. After all, it’s never boring when creating something, right?
Some Manifestations of the South is part of International Competition I7.
