Halley's Comet Didn't Come

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Creative Statement

In 2020, I happened to see on social media that my uncle was leading a team building a temporary shelter hospital in Wuhan. When we video-called, he started singing, with humour...... Something stirred in me, and I flashed back to my own childhood. It was an era full of energy. I want to use montage and music to capture an enlarged memory of childhood, as a tribute to memory and to growing up.

Synopsis

In Wuhan in the early 1990s, a wave of migration is quietly under way, and capable young people leave to try their luck elsewhere. When her parents leave, eight-year-old Nana is left in the care of her young uncle, A'nian. Having heard that a comet is about to hit the Earth, she longs for her parents to come and take her away. A'nian, chasing his dream of music, sells everything he has to play in a band. He tells Nana that the comet will slow down if it hears music on Earth, so Nana joins the band's life. In the end, A'nian is defeated by reality, yet he writes the song he has been waiting for inside himself. Nana "races" the comet with A'nian, and on the day she leaves the city she discovers with delight that the comet has gone and the end of the world has not come!

Genre:

Drama, Coming-of-age

Director:

Zou Shuang

Screenwriter:

Zou Shuang | Chen Si'an

Producer:

Li Ling

About the Director

About the Screenwriter

Zou Shuang: director and screenwriter. She holds a master's degree in film studies from University College London and graduated in film directing with first-class honours. Her graduation film Still was nominated for Best Short Film at an Indian international film festival, won best short film awards at the London Youth Film Festival and a Canadian international film festival, and was selected for Cannes, among others. She has created works as a lead artist at the Royal Opera House, the O2 and other venues in the UK. She has received the Newcomer Award at the UK's International Opera Awards and a Golden Lion award for best children's production. She is now artistic director of the Beijing Music Festival, where she launched a section for emerging classical musicians and curates and produces immersive opera and music theatre. Chen Si'an: young writer, playwright, director and translator. Her published short story collections include Fire Within, Live Food and Fake Life. Her plays include A Mortal's Dream, Fake Life and Travelling the Fuchun Mountains with Huang Gongwang. Plays she has written and directed have been performed at the Royal Court Theatre, the Edinburgh International Festival, the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre, the National Theatre of China, the Beijing Fringe Festival and the Cross-Strait Little Theatre Festival in Taiwan, among others. She received the 2021 Zhongshan Star Young Writer of the Year Award and the short story prize of the 12th Shanghai Literature Awards in 2021.

About the Producer

Li Ling: producer. She graduated in English from Xiamen University, where she studied under Fifth Generation director He Ping, and earned a master's degree in film production from Florida State University. Working with director Lou Ye, she produced Blind Massage, which won the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival, six awards including Best Feature Film at the 51st Golden Horse Awards, the Jury Grand Prize at the 8th Asia Pacific Screen Awards and Best Film at the 9th Asian Film Awards, among others. As general manager of the Wanda Pictures development center, she took part in planning, developing and producing commercial films with strong reviews and box office, including My Adolescence, Go Away Mr. Tumor, Police Story 2013, The Great Hypnotist and Beijing Love Story. She later worked with Huace Pictures through a producer's studio and was film project director at CAA China.

Logline

In Wuhan in the early 1990s, eight-year-old Nana is left by her parents, who go off to seek their fortune, in the care of her uncle, a drifter who plays in a band. Accompanied by music, the two spend an extraordinary summer.