A Corner of Heaven

  • 94'
  • China
  • 2014

Ready to watch this film?

Somewhere in the age-old landscape around the Yellow River, the camera records two children herding goats. We just catch their mother leaving the house and the way their elderly father, opium pipe in hand, screams impotently at them as he points out their duties. With beautifully flowing movements, the camera stays with the little boy (who like the rest of the cast has no professional experience) as he goes looking for his mother in an epic, lonely, hellish journey through contemporary China. Evoking memories of the fate of young heroes from nineteenth-century novels, he is set to work in the city as a slave in a primitive brick factory. Once he manages to escape, he joins a youth gang.
The use of lyrical black & white images of stunning landscapes filled with apocalyptic smoke, mud and filth evokes memories of the work of Alexei Y. German. Zhang combines this with deep sympathy for the desperate, poor Chinese; uprooted from their communities, facing pollution and other consequences of progress. With Brave Talk on Wed 28-1 in the theatre of LantarenVenster.
  • 94'
  • China
  • 2014

Ready to watch this film?

Director
Zhang Miaoyan
Premiere
European premiere
Countries of production
China, France
Year
2014
Festival Edition
IFFR 2015
Length
94'
Medium
DCP
Original title
Tiantang jiaoluo
Language
Mandarin
Producers
Zhang Miaoyan, Guillaume de Seille
Production Companies
Rice Production, Arizona Productions
Sales
Arizona Productions
Screenplay
Zhang Rice
Cinematography
Zhang Miaoyan
Editor
Zhang Miaoyan
Production Design
Du Juemin
Sound Design
Wang Qingshan
Music
Angel Firestar Simmons
Cast
Guo Xinjiang, Huo Xuehui
Local Distributor
Hubert Bals Fund
Director
Zhang Miaoyan
Premiere
European premiere
Countries of production
China, France
Year
2014
Festival Edition
IFFR 2015
Length
94'
Medium
DCP
Original title
Tiantang jiaoluo
Language
Mandarin
Producers
Zhang Miaoyan, Guillaume de Seille
Production Companies
Rice Production, Arizona Productions
Sales
Arizona Productions
Screenplay
Zhang Rice
Cinematography
Zhang Miaoyan
Editor
Zhang Miaoyan
Production Design
Du Juemin
Sound Design
Wang Qingshan
Music
Angel Firestar Simmons
Cast
Guo Xinjiang, Huo Xuehui
Local Distributor
Hubert Bals Fund