52nd edition of New Directors/New Films
Festival&Award
Life is Snow
相谈
JAPAN, CHINA | 2024 | Drama | Short | 30min
Director: ZHANG YAOYUAN
Screenwriter：ZHANG YAOYUAN
Producer: XU MEI, WANG SHEN
Cinematographer：YOU JIN
Editor：SAIGO CHIHARU
Art Director：ZHOU ZIXUAN
Sound：SUZUKI AKIHIKO
Starring：NISHIOKA TOKUMA, ABE TSUYOSHI
导演: 张曜元
编剧：张曜元
制片: 徐梅, 王屾
摄影指导：由进
剪辑：西后知春
美术指导：周子轩
声音：铃木昭彦
主演：西冈德马, 阿部力
Synopsis
Ota, dismissed by the bento factory manager Nakamura, confronts him. In the dispute, Ota gets injured. Each party holds a different account, so Ota turns to the police for help, bringing in lawyer Sato to help him resolve the matter. Unexpectedly, the police receive a mysterious surveillance video.
Festival&Award
SKIP CITY INTERNATIONAL D-Cinema FESTIVAL 2024 Japanese Film Competition Official Selection
Pingyao Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon International Film Festival
- Official Selection
Director's Note
Ota’s story is derived from my documentary on post-war orphans in Japan. Born in Northeast China, Ota worked as a factory worker. After returning to Japan, he faced discrimination in Japan due to language barriers, compelled to engage in manual labour. Floating amid the waves of Northeast China layoffs, Japan’s repatriation, the 3.11 East Japan Earthquake, the cessation of post-war orphan recognition, the outbreak of COVID-19, and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Ota struggled to break free from the fate of being the working class. Despite escaping Northeast China, he couldn’t evade unemployment within the floods from the era; identifying himself as Japanese but embodying Chinese thinking totally, Ota returned to Japan with his family but finally faced its dissolution. These twists of fate deeply moved me.
Yaoyuan Zhang 张曜元
Yaoyuan Zhang was born in Dalian, China in 1989. He embarked on film studies in Japan in 2014 as a Japanese Government (Monbukagakusho) Scholarship recipient under the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Graduating with a Ph.D. in Film from Tokyo University of the Arts in 2024, he had been awarded by the Housen Cultural Foundation Film Fund four times. His last short film Half Time entered the selection of Shanghai International Film Festival, Pingyao Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon International Film Festival the 5th NOWNESS short film awards and won the Best Picture. His latest short film, Life is Snow, won the Best Short Film at the 8th Pingyao International Film Festival and was selected by 2025 Busan International Short Film Festival. His feature project BUY MY CAR won the Red Sea Film Fund Award at APM, 30th Busan International Film Festival.
