Gone with the Boat

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Creative Statement

This is a family film about where we belong. Rivers once connected every village here, and every household had a small boat. People used boats to carry heavy loads, to marry and to travel far. Boats carried a past way of life. Now, with rapid social change and a transformed countryside, those who have left home have to rethink their relationship with where they came from.

Synopsis

Zhou Jin, 72, lives alone in the Zhejiang countryside. Her 42-year-old daughter, Su Nianzhen, runs a study-abroad consultancy in Shanghai and is going through her second divorce; her 36-year-old son, Su Nianqing, works for a travel agency in Beijing, often leads tour groups abroad and is still single. On learning that their mother is terminally ill, the siblings return home. The sister insists on giving their mother the best possible treatment; the brother supports their mother in letting go and accepting it. In her final days, Zhou Jin guides her children to face the parting, to find where their hearts belong and to look again at their own ties to their hometown.

Release Date:

2024-04-12 (Chinese Mainland)

Selection Year and Section:

Top 9, Work-in-Progress Section, 2022

Genre:

Drama, Family

Director/Screenwriter:

Chen Xiaoyu

Cast:

Ge Zhaomei | Wu Zhoukai | Liu Dan

Producer:

Huang Fan

Production Company:

Chongqing Xiaozhi Dacheng Culture Media Co., Ltd. | Zhejiang Fanshexing Film and Television Production Co., Ltd.

Other Festival Selections

25th Shanghai International Film Festival, Golden Goblet Awards, Asian New Talent section, Best Screenplay / 25th Shanghai International Film Festival, Golden Goblet Awards, Asian New Talent section, Best Film (nominee) / 25th Shanghai International Film Festival, Golden Goblet Awards, Asian New Talent section, Best Director (nominee) / 10th Silk Road International Film Festival, Best New Director / 17th FIRST International Film Festival, Main Competition, Best Feature Film (nominee) / 2nd Cambodia Asian Film Festival, Main Competition, "Golden Longdu Award" for Best Screenplay

About the Director/Screenwriter

Chen Xiaoyu: Graduated from the film production program of Toronto Film School and has worked in film since 2011. His works include the theatrical feature Gone with the Boat, the documentary films Let's Go!, Villagers by the Sea and Waves, and the short fiction films Back to Reality and Human Consciousness Collection Project. His work has been selected for the top ten of the CFDG China Young Film Director Support Program (Qingcong Project), the Wave Film Week, the youth section of Yunfest, the Phoenix Documentary Awards, the China Independent Film Festival (CIFF) Top Ten Documentaries of the Year, the top ten of the Blue Planet Bocai Fantasy Film Program, the Global Render Contest Top 100, the Changchun Youth Film Festival, the new talent section of the Hainan Documentary Festival, the One Way Street Post-85 Fresh Wave Film Festival, the Beijing International Short Film Festival, the Pumpkin Fantastic Film Festival and COART Live Art, among others. His works are held in the collections of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Lingnan University in Hong Kong and Northeast Normal University.

About the Producer

Huang Fan: Has worked in film and television since 1997. Main credits: assistant director on Jiang Wen's Devils on the Doorstep; production coordinator on Peter Pau's The Touch; China coordinator on Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill; China executive producer on Marc Forster's The Kite Runner; co-producer on Phil Agland's Between Clouds and Dreams.

About the Production Company

Chongqing Xiaozhi Dacheng Culture Media Co., Ltd.: Committed to bringing small, carefully made low-budget films to a wide audience.

Logline

Zhou Jin, an old woman living alone in a village by the canal, is suddenly diagnosed with a brain tumor, and her children, who live away from home, have to return to care for her. Facing their mother's death, her daughter Su Nianzhen and son Su Nianqing confront their own relationship with their hometown again.