CM 2021

Factory Gate Films

A Dutiful Wife

湖水里的猛兽

Pitch video

Goals at CineMart The director is open to working with an international crew. A Dutiful Wife will be shot in China but we wish to work with European directors of photography. Post-production, sound design and music can be done in Europe. We look for international partners who can bring funds and input from their perspectives. We believe European support can defend the project and give more rights of freedom of speech to the author. The beauty of the art of cinema, humanity, and female issues are universal themes regardless if they are Chinese or European.At CineMart, we would like to find European co-producers, fund managers, in-kind investors, distributors and sales agents. We wish to construct a healthy financing structure with both private investments and film funds and gain material support and facilities offered by different local partners.Synopsis Ran, a 40-year-old psychiatrist working at the intensive male ward of a lake-side city&rsquo;s mental hospital, hears the news that her husband, Hui, hasn&rsquo;t shown up at work. She seems worried at first and reports his missing to the police.In her storage room stands a large wardrobe. One door remains locked. Faint noises are heard from inside at night.Due to heavy rainfall, the city lake floods. Folklore claims that it&rsquo;s the magic working of a lake monster, which devours human life when angered.Hui has disappeared. No one suspects Ran except a policewoman, who brings her in for questioning. Ran paints the picture of a perfect marriage. Flashbacks of her real marriage play out: contrary to her words, Hui, a university professor, is a violent, perverse man. The noises have stopped in the wardrobe. In a dreamlike scene, water oozes out from inside, gradually turning red. Ran visits the flooded lake and buys a fishnet large enough to hold a human corpse. Just as she&rsquo;s about to open the wardrobe, the police arrive to search her place. They order her to open the locked wardrobe door. To her great surprise, there&rsquo;s nothing inside except a bloody sanitary pad &mdash; Hui has escaped.Alone with the policewoman, Ran takes off her clothes and reveals her body covered in bruises from domestic violence. With Hui at large, Ran experiences the trauma of his abuse all over again. The power dynamic shifts.However, this time, Ran won&rsquo;t let Hui get to her. She will find him, with the help of her female friends: the policewoman and a pregnant colleague.The lake monster will show her power, and the male ward of her hospital expects a new patient.Director&rsquo;s Biography Haolu Wang is a Chinese-born writer-director based in London, a graduate of UK&rsquo;s National Film and Television School with an MA in Directing Fiction. She creates immersive, subjective narratives to explore the characters&rsquo; psychological and emotional journeys, often blurring the boundaries between reality and imagination. Her sensibility leans towards psychological suspense, sci-fi, and fantasy. Her short films have screened at notable festivals around the world. She is developing feature film projects: the UK-set sci-fi love story Fellow Travellers (winner: best project at the Industry section of the 2020 International Film Festival &amp; Awards Macao) and the China-set psychological thriller A Dutiful Wife. She&rsquo;s a BAFTA Scholar mentored by Alex Garland and an alumna of Berlinale Talents. She&rsquo;s represented by Independent Talent (UK) and UTA (USA).&nbsp;

A Chinese woman psychiatrist conceals the fact that her missing husband is locked in her wardrobe.