Afterimage of Youth

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Creative Statement

For Shaocheng, every moment in his life that he thought was a new beginning turned into a "nightmare". These painful turns in life always strike a chord, because most of us have been through something like them. Stories about growing pains move people because they fall in the most sensitive period of our lives. "Self-identity" is a question every person has to face. And the best reward is still to meet love and understanding while growing up. Only before the one who loves you do your ordinariness and failures still shine. She cherishes your imperfections and grieves that the world has not treated you well. She helps you accept yourself.

Synopsis

A boy named Shaocheng is born in a small northern town also called Shaocheng. Just as his family gets through years of hardship, his parents' marriage breaks down. Still a child, he begins looking after his mother alone, until she takes her own life. When he goes south to live with his father, he meets the last person he should have met: the friend who was like a brother to him in childhood suddenly becomes his stepbrother. Later he decides to leave this home that is not his own and to go north to university with the girl he likes. But that year, because of quarrels and misunderstandings between him and his brother, the girl has an accident and misses the college entrance exam... Years later, life returns to stillness, and the youth of the three quietly comes to an end.

Genre:

Drama, Coming-of-age, Romance, Mystery

Director/Screenwriter:

Li Zhen

Executive Producer:

Manfred Wong

About the Director/Screenwriter

Li Zhen: Studied editing in the undergraduate programme of the Directing Department, Beijing Film Academy (class of 2015), and is now a master's student at the Academy's School of Performing Arts (class of 2019). In 2018 he edited A Blue Shrimp, selected for the Wide Angle section of the 23rd Busan International Film Festival. In 2019 he wrote and directed 2012, which won the Golden Conch Award for Best Short Film at the 4th Ningbo Micro Film Festival and received more than 1 million yuan in project support from the NSFF Bodi Pictures Young Directors Program. He also won Best Screenplay and Best Actress at the Beijing Film Academy 2019 graduation joint productions, and First Prize in the drama category of the International College Student Micro Film Festival.

Logline

Shaocheng and Kai grew up together, as close as brothers. After his parents divorce and his mother dies in an accident, Shaocheng goes to live with his father and meets Kai again in his new home. As teenagers, they meet their classmate Ye Zhixing, and a tragedy that begins with first love slowly unfolds. After many twists, life returns to stillness, and all that remains is remembrance and self-knowledge.