International Premiere
The six-year-old daughter of a deaf-mute couple frustrates her father, who believes she can hear and speak. Much of the film, which is about communication, is done in Chinese Sign Language (CSL). Powerful without being flashy, the story showcases the challenges, melancholy, and social stigma of being deaf and mute in our increasingly auditory world. First-rate direction keeps the story developments flowing while excellent performances make the characters completely believable, especially the young girl whose stoicism acts as a shield against an outside world she dislikes. This is an intense drama that doesn’t cheapen the raw-earned emotions with sentimentality, and delivers a moving message of love and devotion.
Media Partner
Community Partner
Yinghong Hui, Enyou Yang, Xianhe Wang, Yamin Yan
China
2021
In Mandarin with English subtitles
Featured in:
International Shorts: Family Ties
The bonds of family form the basis of this program of short films. Bonds with history and responsibility—sometimes close, sometimes strained—now and for the future.
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
The Executioner
Regularly cited as the greatest Spanish film ever made, Berlanga's masterpiece is a pitch black comedy about an undertaker lined up by the state executioner to marry his beautiful daughter -- but he'll also have to inherit the old man's job.
The Mother and the Bear
Johnny Ma’s film stars Kim Ho-jung as a Korean woman who flies to Winnipeg when her immigrant daughter is hospitalized there. This crowd-pleaser plays up cultural differences to hilarious effect and offers a touching take on mother-daughter tension.
The Plague
At a water polo camp, Ben is plunged into the deep end of toxic peer pressure. Terrified of incurring his campmates’ wrath, he joins them in tormenting a kid whose skin rash has been branded “the plague”. But then he experiences a breakout of his own...
The Flamenco Guitar of Yerai Cortés + Por Derecho (For the Right) Live
Winner of the Goya Award for Best Documentary, this is an exquisite and surprisingly intimate portrait of the brilliant young guitarist Yerai Cortés, preceded by an hour of passionate flamenco music, song and dance performed by Flamenco Rosario.
Credits
Producer
Fangzhou Zhao, Corey Pengyang Sun
Screenwriter
Dandi Fu
Cinematography
Jianeng Li
Editor
Cheng Chen
Production Design
Yading Li
Original Music
Nancy Li
Director
Mo Sha
Mo Sha is a Chinese director. In 2017, his first web series, My Huckleberry Friends, was rated 8.6/10 in Douban. In 2021, he released his directorial debut feature, Love Will Tear Us Apart, and won Best Youth Director of the Year in the iQiyi reality show, Action!
Filmography: Love Will Tear Us Apart (2021)

