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Qu’s latest has a message for educators
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CHINESE director Vivian Qu hopes her new film “Angels Wear White” (“Jia Nian Hua”) will generate a discussion on sex education and child protection in her home country, she said at the Venice Film Festival.
Qu, whose directorial debut “Trap Street” (“Shuiyin Jie”) premiered to critical acclaim at the festival in 2013, was back in the Italian city to present her latest project.
She said sex education at an early age was important because children needed to learn how to protect themselves as their parents were not necessarily always around.
“Angels Wear White” is set in a seafront town, where two young girls are assaulted in a motel by a middle-aged man.
The only witness is receptionist Mia, who is only a few years older than the girls. As news of the assault spread, hotel management tries to cover up the evidence.
Mia, worried she may lose her job, says nothing. Meanwhile, Wen, one of the victims, finds her troubles have just begun. In a world that offers them no safety, they have to find their own way out of their troubles.
Qu said she drew inspiration for the film from real life. It pained her to think that justice was often not served or came too late.
Making a movie on such a sensitive topic with a young, non-professional actress presented challenges, she added.
Qu spent two months training her young star Zhou Meijun on weekends when the girl was out of school. Zhou was not aware of the entire plot. “She didn’t understand, she was very young and very pure. So, we only gave her scene by scene,” Qu said.
“We focused more on her relationship with her parents because that’s also how the film was and because those are the things that she could understand,” she added.
Qu is the only female director in the festival’s main competition this year and, while acknowledging the difficulties female filmmakers face, Qu said she believed it was more important to encourage women into the industry rather than opt for quotas.
“Any serious film makers would not want to be selected only because she is female, we want to be selected as good film makers, we make equally good films,” she said.
The winner of the Golden Lion award at the festival, which ended on Saturday, went to Mexican director Guillermo del Toro for “The Shape of Water.”
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