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
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
One of only a handful of live action children's films to capture the imaginations of generations, E.T. has a luminous warmth; it's a suburban symphony of emotion, and it's fascinating to revisit it in the light of The Fabelmans.
Turner & Constable
Filmed as a supplement to a blockbuster exhibition at Tate Britain happening right now, this doc in the popular Exhibition on Screen series allows us to view these competitive, complementary English landscape artists side by side.
The President's Cake
Nine year old Lamia and her friend Saeed venture into the city to scrounge ingredients for a cake to celebrate Sadaam Hussein's birthday — a quest fraught with real peril in precarious times. Winner, Camera d'Or, Cannes.
Montreal, ma belle
In this Valentine to discovering love later in life, the ever-elegant Joan Chen plays Feng Xia, a 53-year-old Chinese immigrant and mother in Montreal whose world is turned upside down when she meets and falls in love with a young Quebecoise.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly + Talkback with Special Guests
The third and the best of the so-called 'Dollars' trilogy amplifies Leone's baroque style: crane shots, shock cuts and Morricone music all vying for attention as three rogues hunt buried gold in a series of triangular variations. + Intro and Talkback
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)

