Xiaoling Zhu : 2011
The Rice Paddy
In a small mountain village lives A Qiu, a 12-year-old girl with hopes of becoming a writer and travelling the world. She is Dong, an ethnic minority in southern China, a people with their own language, without writing but with a culture rich in artistic traditions. A people who moulded mountains all around and covered them with terraced rice paddy. But life is tough in the autonomous Guangxi province and A Qiu's dreams seem hard to reach. Her parents have left to work in the city, and A Qiu and her little brother, Abao, stay with their grandparents. They go to school and help out in the family's rice paddy every day. When the grandmother suddenly dies, the parents have to come home to work in the rice paddy, but life is a constant struggle to make ends meet. A Qiu's family try to adjust to new conditions, between tradition and modernity, and try to face the future as serenely as possible. Through A Qiu's diary notes we follow her ups and downs during one eventful year, through different weather conditions and rice seasons. This touching psychological story, shot in settings of stunning beauty with non-professional actors, is the first film made entirely in the Dong language. Writer and director Xiaoling Zhu was born and grew up in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Her international award-winning first feature screened at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.
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