On the evening of June 18, at this year's Shanghai International Film Festival, "Winter Traveler", as a shortlisted film for the Asian Newcomer Award, had its world premiere in Shanghai.
The lingering emotions of the characters in the film are accompanied by the chill of winter in Tacheng, Xinjiang, and slowly flow through the director's restrained narrative. The small inn gathers travelers who have left their homes and returned with regrets. They gain a little warmth and comfort from each other, and each regains the courage to return to their own life track.
"Winter Traveler" stills
Director Lu Dan has been traveling on this road with the three "Winter Travelers" for five years since he started making this film in 2019. And this is also a film produced by the late director Wanma Tseden.
Director Lu Dan
The absent father and the questions he had no chance to ask
The story of "Winter Traveler" comes from Lu Dan's personal experience. In the movie, Xiaoyu, a Han girl in her early twenties, Ivan, a Russian photographer in her thirties, and Refati, a hotel owner in his fifties, meet in a small hotel in Tacheng, Xinjiang. In the brief encounter, I gained a little comfort and warmth. All three of them deeply regretted the absence of their family members, and all three of them also carried Lu Dan’s emotional memories of his hometown and relatives.
Lu Dan told reporters that his father went to the Soviet Union to study for a long time in the 1980s and brought back many old objects, including a green accordion. When she grew up, Lu Dan saw photos of her father when he was young. He looked like something she had never seen before. He was young and high-spirited. "Since I can remember, I have never seen that side of my father. He was always very silent, loved to drink, and didn't talk much at home. He was like a very lonely animal."
"Winter Traveler" stills
18 years old , Lu Dan was admitted to Communication University of China and left the family he had wanted to escape from during his adolescence. The new life in Beijing was very attractive to her. She never noticed any changes in her father, nor did she hear anything unusual from the occasional phone calls.
Soon after entering college, his father passed away due to illness. Later, she learned that her father would call his classmates and friends to tell him about his admission to the University of Communication. For him, this might be one of the few things he could be proud of in his gloomy life. "I feel very sorry. I never had the chance to chat with him. I don't know why he became like this."
So the male protagonist Ivan in the movie is set to be Russian, and the girl played by Wang Yi is Like Lu Dan himself, he has an obsession with seeing the bigger world.
Stills of "Winter Traveler"
The temperament of "Winter Traveler" is very quiet, just like Lu Dan's feeling, gentle and firm. During the filming of the film, Lu Dan chose a spectator's perspective, using a fixed camera position and a long lens. Most of the scenes were panoramic and medium shots.
When talking about the choice of lens language, Lu Dan said, "When I was young, I may have complained a lot about them. Later, whether it was because of death, or because the time period was too long, or maybe because of geographical reasons. "Xinjiang is too far away from Beijing, and it seems that this nostalgia is a bit amplified."
Lu Dan hopes that in the movie, she can return to an objective perspective to look back on the past, "I want to use a relatively objective perspective." perspective, looking back at the stories that happened in the past from the perspective of a bystander, including showing the alienation between characters and between people and the environment. "
The main creators were at the meeting
The movie didn't seem so far away from me.
Lu Dan's film enlightenment began with a special Chinese teacher in high school. "He was quite different from other teachers. Sometimes he would spend two or three self-study classes to show us movies." Those who occupied the valuable resources of high school students The light and shadow of classroom time are like seeds, taking root and sprouting in the heart of a sensitive girl.
When he was in college, watching movies became Rudan's haven to "escape from the world." "Every time I watch a movie, I can immerse myself in the world of the movie at that moment, temporarily forgetting the things around me."In college, Lu Dan "watched movies crazily, but never thought that he would be able to make movies in the future."
Until graduation in 2015, Lu Dan shot a short documentary as his graduation work. At the suggestion of his school teacher Next, she participated in some film festivals, was shortlisted and won awards.
During the process of participating in film festivals, Lu Dan found that the entrance to the industry was crowded with ambitious young people. “It felt very good, and everyone was very energetic. "Most of the projects she was shortlisted for at that time cost hundreds of thousands or millions, but her documentary only cost 3,000 yuan, which was mainly the travel expenses from Northeast China to Beijing. "For the first time, I felt as if there was no distance between me and the movie. So far away, it seems that the movie has a little bit of possibility for me. "
After graduating from Communication University of China in 2015, she made documentaries and also worked at an Internet company. At the end of 2018, she completed the writing of two movie scripts, resigned and entered the preparation work of the film. She returned to her hometown of Tacheng, Xinjiang , integrating mountains, rivers, people, customs and customs into the nourishment of movies.
Newcomers always have limited starting capital. Lu Dan also spent all her savings from working over the years at the beginning. She and her producer friends in Xinjiang. , pieced together here and there, finally in the first half of 2019, the cameras began to roll, "Two raw melons and eggs, ignorant people who don't know the heights of the world are fearless. "
In 2020, Lu Dan was on the set. The material shot for the first time by
formed a 20-minute short film, which was shortlisted for the 4th Shanyi Women's International Film Festival in 2020. It was also at this film festival that Lu Dan won the favor of the judges at the time Wanma Tseden's approval. Under his guidance, Lu Dan made in-depth revisions and improvements to the script, and started filming again in March 2021.
Wang Yi
After two years, the film's creators were all impressed. With more growth, Wang Yi, who was recognized by the audience last year for her role as "Little Jiangxi" in "花", as the heroine of this film, also expressed emotion at this film festival, "Two years later, Returning to the same place, wearing the same clothes, and playing the same role, at that moment I will realize the meaning of the movie, and it will make me really want to cherish the movie. "
Stills of "Winter Traveler"
Wanma Tseden said, "It would be great to be in Asia and Singapore."
Two months after the second shooting was completed, Lu Dan handed the finished film to Wanma Tseden for review. Not only did he express his approval for the film, but he also decided to join the team as a producer to inject more power into the later stages of the film.
“I have been in a daze for the past five years, and sometimes I wonder if I have done something meaningless. "Lu Dan seems to find it hard to be happy after making a movie. In the past five years, the completion of the movie seems to be far away. While she is under pressure, she insists on some individual expressions that are incompatible with the "market", and she is often doing "spending". "I have spent so much time and energy, but there is no result".
In 2009, Wanma Tseden's first feature film "The Quiet Mani Stone" won the Best Asian Newcomer Award at the 9th Shanghai International Film Festival Director Award. Wanma Tseden, who started in Asia, has been committed to supporting new directors for many years after becoming an internationally renowned film master. In Lu Dan’s cell phone, he retained the last time he had with director Wanma Tseden. The exchange was two days before his death on May 8: "The teacher said to me: 'I hope you can enter Yaxin, that would be great. '"
At the Shanghai Cinema on the evening of June 18, the film screening ended. Lu Dan and the crew stood under the spotlight. After the premiere, Lu Dan said to the audience, "After five years, I finally came here to meet the audience, no matter what Encouragement or criticism are both important to us. "
Wanma Caidan's co-creator and the film's sound director Dege Cairang recalled to the audience at the meeting after the premiere that when the film festival version was produced, the ending song had not yet been created. The urgency almost made him give up. "Later, I squinted and woke up in the middle of the night. I saw the director and others were still modifying the sound next door. Maybe it was the blessing of Wanma. Suddenly inspiration came and I wrote the following music in one night. Now that I think about it, I’m glad I persisted."
Producer Wang Lei, who has worked with Wanma Caidan for many years, told Lu Dan that only by experiencing a premiere can he truly be called a director. During this trip to Shanghai International Film Festival, Lu Dan said, "The premiere It's like a graduation ceremony. In the past five years, I have fumbled my way into a strange university and finally graduated. "
Teacher, the "graduation photo" is here.
