Ripples of Life

A star actress brings a film crew to her own remote home town. The place is a small town in southern China and the purpose is to prepare a film there. But as the work goes on, disagreements break out inside the crew. The work is divided into three chapters, each told from someone else’s point of view. At the centre of the first is a woman who serves the crew at the family restaurant every day. Out of a life that bores her she starts standing in for the star. In the later chapters the actress and the screenwriter come forward. The film looks at how independent cinema in China actually runs. Wei Shujun’s film, a hundred and twenty three minutes long, was shown at the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes.