Busan: Parallax Boards ‘Changfeng Town’ Dreamy Chinese Drama

Naman Ramachandran

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Parallax Films, one of China’s handful of indie sales outfits, has boarded Wang Jing’s “Changfeng Town.” It will present the film to international festivals and buyers at Busan, where it has its international premiere at the ‘A Window On Asian Cinema’ strand.

The film is produced by China’s Anzhu Films and Singapore’s Wormwood Films. It bowed in competition at China’s First International Film Festival in July.

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“Changfeng Town,” the filmmaker’s third project after her 2007 debut “Crossroads” and a segment in 2010 portmanteau film “Breakfast Lunch Dinner” was selected twice by the Golden Horse project market and received support from Busan’s Asian Cinema Fund, the First Financing Forum, China Film Foundation and the Wu Tianming Film Fund.

“When I was creating the ‘Changfeng Town’ I felt like I was facing a different phase of my life and the impulse to summarise the time and space that I had experienced became stronger,” Wang told Variety.
“I needed it to see more clearly my relationship with the world. Therefore, I chose a story that is related to nostalgia. I created an imaginary hometown and put various inhabitants in it. It reflects my genuine emotions and memories of my own hometown. But at the same time, it also demonstrates my awareness to keep a distance from so-called ‘realism.’ I wanted this blurry distance from reality and to see what it means to me,” said Wang.

Parallax, a subsidiary of Midnight Blur Films, with outposts in Beijing, Shanghai, Paris, Tokyo and New York, had been following the project from its initial presentations at pitching sessions and markets, and was waiting for the finished product.

“After watching the film, we appreciated its high quality as the nostalgic depiction of an imaginary location,” Parallax head of international sales Cao Liuying told Variety. “The gentleness of the narrative tone is also impressive.”

Parallax has a busy autumn ahead handing several other titles, all debut features. These include Chai Xiaoyu’s “Fish Park”, a depiction of contemporary Beijing youth that won the Spirit of Freedom award at the First International Film Festival; Zhang Xian’s “Best Director,” a drama that looks at modern marriage in China, which will premiere at Pingyao and is selected for Warsaw’s Free Spirit competition; and Zhou Sun’s coming-of-age tale “Summer is the Coldest Season” which is headed for Pingyao’s main competition.

Next up for Wang is a film noir project.

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