Creative Statement
Yu Zhou, a reporter afraid of birds, comes to a city where birds have died out, goes deep into the unfinished building the birds call home to report on a story of "people turning into birds," and sets off on a fantastical journey.
Synopsis
Shanxi, 2013. No birds have been seen in this city for years. Yu Zhou (female, 29), an ambitious reporter at a Shanxi TV station, has risen quickly by fabricating news about social conflicts to steer public opinion. Even so, rumors that she is pregnant get her transferred to direct World Wonders, a program on the verge of cancellation. At this low point, a strange news item catches her eye: an old flatbread seller in an urban village claims that his late wife has turned into an unusual bird. Yu Zhou soon arrives to film an absurd golden wedding anniversary between a man and a bird, meant to be her comeback, but at the crucial moment the bird dies after eating an aphrodisiac supplied by the sponsor. To keep filming, Yu Zhou goes looking for a stand-in in an abandoned unfinished building where, according to local rumor, flocks of these birds live, and meets the residents who live there in secret for various reasons. Through her contact with them, Yu Zhou realizes that her mother, who jumped from the unfinished building when Yu Zhou was a child after her real estate business failed, may bear some of the blame. Yu Zhou wants to help them get proper resettlement, but falls into the developer's trap: the building is about to be forcibly demolished, she is caught in a public opinion crisis and can barely protect herself, and she is told that these so-called residents are really just a flock of birds. Yu Zhou resolves to defend the truth as she sees it and help the residents fight for their rights. She breaks into the unfinished building as it is being demolished. Her memories keep surging back until the moment her mother jumped, and Yu Zhou sees her mother turn into a bird. Running between memory and reality, Yu Zhou tries to save the residents, to save her falling mother and to save the self trapped in her memories. In the end, Yu Zhou finds that she too has become a bird, and she leads everyone out of the unfinished building and up into the distant sky.
