WALKING PAST THE FUTURE, the Chinese film directed by Chinese director Ruijun Li, with the cast of Yang Zishan, is nominated on the list of The Un Certain Regard.
WALKING PAST THE FUTURE is the fifth long film directed by Ruijun Li. Before that, his film FLY WITH THE CRANE(2012), adapted from the novel written by Su Tong, nominated on the Horizon of the Venice Film Festival. In 2014, the film RIVER ROAD, which is written and directed by Ruijun Li, was nominated both on Competition of the Tokyo Film Festival and Generation of the Berlin Film Festival.
The main crews of WALKING PAST THE FUTURE are Yang Zishan and Yin Fang. It tells a story that Chinese girl Yang Yaoting, who is from Ganshu Province, is born in Shenzhen and grows up in Shenzhen as well. She tried to bring her parents who were living in countryside to stay in Shen Zhen. The film tells the story of the lonely outlander walking in their life trajectory. In order to achieve the goal, some work hard, and some are unscrupulous. The characters in the movie are surrounded by the real cruelty of the real world and the fantasy of the virtual world. They lose themselves in the motion of longing, joy, frustration and despair. The initial expectation of the future has gradually become the bubble phantom.
Ruijun Li, who is both director and screenwriter, is very cautious on on the creation of the film and he is good at capturing the real effect of the lens. Before shooting the WALKING PAST THE FUTURE, he led the main actors to visit the streets, and to observe the same level style of life of the characters in the film. After several times’ visiting, actor Yin Fang wrote a biography of nearly ten thousand words on the characters according to his own experience. The main creators often explored and built the characters based on the language and behavior of the real people in the life. During the shooting, the director would random capture some interesting scenes based on the actors’ on-site response, so that the film is more vivid and true.
The Un Certain Regard is the second competition unit of Cannes, which is concerned about the relatively unique film works of perspective and aesthetics. The leader of The Un Certain Regard Jury in this year is the famous American actress Uma Thurman.