The post-pandemic era and the overall economic downturn of recent years have left many people weighed down by fatigue and anxiety, so I wanted to write a story about how books and libraries can heal people. In a library I met a "bookworm" who had worked in the acquisitions and cataloguing department for twenty years. His life was extremely simple and self-contained, like a "black hole", giving a sense of both simplicity and depth. When I got to know him better, I was moved by qualities in him that the rest of us lost long ago. In my story I open a gap to empathise with him and feel his inner strength and what is moving about him, so that our own anxiety can be eased and healed.
He Bi, an eccentric, withdrawn and socially awkward book-loving librarian who restores books, is nearly blind from an eye disease. To keep his library job, he plans to hide it and work as a "blind librarian". His scheme is upset by Pei Jia, a fierce, hot-tempered "borrower" who is a cook at a Hunan restaurant. The two clash like Mars hitting Earth, causing one incident after another. The real reason Pei Jia makes trouble is that she is caring for her younger brother Pei Jun, who is paralysed from the neck down but has read widely and is known as the "Hawking of the slums". The "special wish" of Pei Jun and other disadvantaged people concerning the library's rare ancient books moves He Bi, and he decides, beyond his own capacity, to help them. To do so he has to challenge the traditional system of the library world, and face both his "control freak" father, with whom he had intended never to have contact again, and his failing eyes. This leads to a "major incident" of group conflict that moves many people... It is a warm, uplifting comedy about how a nearly blind, withdrawn book restorer deals with social conflict and family discord, helps disadvantaged people and finds love.
Genre:
Drama, Realist, Slice-of-Life ComedyDirector:
Chen ZoumingScreenwriter:
Chen Zouming | Wang YanruProduction Company:
Zouming (Beijing) Culture Media Co., Ltd.Chen Zouming: graduated from the Directing Department of the Beijing Film Academy, with ten years of experience in creative planning and film and television directing. Works include many TV commercials, two short films and a TV movie series. Short films: You... (2011) and The Fly Catcher (2012). TV movies (2017): The True and False Will and Deep Crisis, which received full-mark ratings on CCTV Movie Channel.
Chen Zouming: graduated from the Directing Department of the Beijing Film Academy, with ten years of experience in creative planning and film and television directing. Works include many TV commercials, two short films and a TV movie series. Short films: You... (2011) and The Fly Catcher (2012). TV movies (2017): The True and False Will and Deep Crisis, which received full-mark ratings on CCTV Movie Channel. Wang Yanru: Department of Dramatic Literature, Beijing Film Academy. The film Bathhouse. Drummer, from Wang's screenplay, won Best Cinematography in the student section of the 7th India Film Festival and the Golden Feather Award, the student director award of the Directing Department of the Beijing Film Academy, and received three nominations at the 2019 Milan International Film Festival.
Zouming (Beijing) Culture Media Co., Ltd.: founded in 2016 by director Chen Zouming. The company develops and produces genre films that address social themes, and pursues projects with a distinct aesthetic style and artistic vision.
A reclusive, self-contained and selfish "bookworm librarian" is going blind. To protect himself, he has to act as "a normal person who is not blind", which sets off a series of bittersweet comic episodes. In the end he helps disadvantaged people achieve their dreams, resolves the conflict with his father, finds love and turns his life around: a spirited slice-of-life comedy.