The Night Belongs to Us - released as part of 对立面 short film anthology

#FIRSTFilmFestival #FIRST训练营影片 #TongYao #童瑶 #SongYang #宋洋 #ZhouYiwei #周一围 #对立面 #ShortFilm #TheNightBelongsToUs #属于我们的黑夜

(amend: I was unwilling to call this anthology by the English title "Face's a Verb" since I wasn't sure if I was reading it properly but it seems like some websites are calling it that so I will too for now.  I might change this in the future if this turns out to be the wrong title.)

  

The FIRST International Film Festival released a trailer promoting the debut screening of an anthology of short films a few days ago (21st June). This anthology of short films, titled 对立面 (literal translation: Opposites), consist of a collection of films from the 15th FIRST Training Camp. The films were first screened at the festival last year but will not be released for public screening till 29th June this month.

There is an official English (?) title on the poster for the festival but I must confess that I cannot make it out.  It looks like "Face's a Verb" which means nothing meaningful in English so I'm not sure if this is even in English or if I'm reading it correctly.  Hence, I will refrain from using the non-Chinese title since I don't know what it is.

This anthology of films will be of interest to Tong Yao, Song Yang and Zhou Yiwei's etc fans.  Tong Yao and Song Yang co-starred in one of the films directed by Bo Hanxiong (薄汉雄).  The film's original English title was Night Night but has now been changed to The Night Belongs to Us which is closer in meaning to the Chinese title 属于我们的黑夜. Zhou Yiwei fans might be interested in this because he serves as a mentor at this Training Camp.  I think he also appears in at least one of the films but I'm not 100% certain right now.

According to this article, The Night Belongs to Us is about how "negative" characters find love.  It looks interesting, with both Tong Yao and Song Yao made up to look look unglamorous and rugged in the film.  I've also watched two trailers of two of Bo Hanxiong's short films and also his short film about zombies.  He's not bad at all.  I'm interested in watching this anthology not just for this film though, the trailer makes the rest of the short films look interesting. 

Sadly, I think International fans will probably find it hard or near impossible to view this anthology of films on the 29th June and possibly in the near future and maybe even beyond that.  At least it won't be available for us to view on the 29th June unless you have VPN and a way to pay for the online screening on iQiyi's 云影院 which I think is iQiyi's online movie screening platform.  According to the article, it's 12 RMB and iQiyi VIP members get a 50% discount.

Anyway, here's the link to the iQiyi page with the trailer if the FIRST Film Festival link didn't work for you, CLICK ME.  I won't upload it unless people have trouble viewing it or if it goes offline one day.  If you're into any of the actors or if you like short films, especially those from emerging / young directors, you might be interested in it too.  

Also, if anyone is interested, I translated a "documentary" about the shooting of this short film last year, here is the link for that, CLICK ME.  I did a little write-up about the director Bo Hanxiang at the end of this post.  If anyone is interested to check out the trailers for his short films and also to watch his short film about a zombie attack, they are linked in that post too. 

(For links to interviews & other reviews of Tong Yao's work, please CLICK ME)