To See the Sea

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Creative Statement

Through a teenager's exploration of love, I try to show a young person growing up into society. I hope his loneliness, darkness, hunger, danger and failure will move you.

Synopsis

Teenager He San leaves home on his own and comes alone to a factory in Guangdong. Falling in love with a girl from his hometown, he is drawn into a whirlpool of love. In pursuing and trying to understand her, he comes to affirm love and kindness for himself.

Genre:

Romance

Director/Screenwriter:

Fang Liang

Producer:

Huang Xufeng | Hong Xinyi

Production Company:

Factory Gate Films

About the Director/Screenwriter

Fang Liang: Screenwriter and director. MFA in film production from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and a participant in the Golden Horse Film Academy. His first feature, Wake Me Up Before You Go (2018), was selected for the main competition of the 12th FIRST International Film Festival and nominated for Best Director. His second feature, To See the Sea, is in post-production; the project was selected for the project markets of several festivals and for the WIP section of HAF (Hong Kong Asia Film Financing Forum).

About the Producer

Huang Xufeng: Founder, CEO and chief producer of Factory Gate Films. He has produced Tong Shengjia's The Third Brother, Fang Liang's Wake Me Up Before You Go, Zhang Xiaosha's My Son Went to Another Planet, Gu Xiaogang's Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains, Pema Tseden's Balloon, Han Shuai's Summer Blur, Chen Yanqi's A Day Trip, Wei Shujun's Stories Here and There, Liu Gongyi's Playing with Fire, Fang Liang's To See the Sea and Zhang Jiajun's All the Sad Young Men. He has invested in and presented films including Ju Anqi's The Trophy Floating on the Sea, Zhang Dalei's Blue Train and Gao Ming's Damp Season. Hong Xinyi: Producer and director, with a master's degree from the London Film School. Producer of Fang Liang's To See the Sea; executive producer of Zhang Jiajun's All the Sad Young Men (selected for the project market of the Shanghai International Film Festival). Producer of Yu Zhouchunyu's feature Goodbye Yingzhou (selected for the 2021 top ten of the Qingcong Project and for the Wu Tianming project fund, winning Best Director Project), and of Yu Zhouchunyu's short films Walk and Goodbye Yingzhou. As director and screenwriter, her short film Apart reached the semifinals of the 2021 Student Academy Awards in the United States and was selected for more than ten international festivals, including the Hollywood Short Film Festival. Films she worked on as a key creative, including The Story of Firecrackers, were selected for the Golden Goblet Awards at the Shanghai International Film Festival and won the Jury Grand Prize at the Jiajiazhuang Short Film Week.

About the Production Company

Factory Gate Films: Founded in 2017 by experienced industry professionals who love cinema. With directors at the center of its creative work, it is a film production house focused on quality and artistic distinctiveness. Its films include Tong Shengjia's The Third Brother, Fang Liang's The Visit, Gu Xiaogang's Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains, Gao Ming's Damp Season, Pema Tseden's Balloon, Zhang Dalei's Blue Train, Han Shuai's Summer Blur and Wei Shujun's Stories Here and There. Film projects in production include Chen Yanqi's A Day Trip, Liu Gongyi's Playing with Fire, Chen Yanbin's The Secret of the "Monster", Zhang Jiajun's All the Sad Young Men, Fang Liang's To See the Sea, Wang Haolu's The Beast in the Lake and He Jia's Red Hare.

Logline

Unable to bear the gloom after his father's death, teenager He San comes alone to a factory in Shenzhen and joins the crowds of migrant workers in the south, where, through love and desire, he glimpses a vaster, secret jungle.