Never Turn East

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Creative Statement

Her child carries the gene for a fatal rare disease. The only hope is a drug her own company is developing, but the company's cash flow has dried up and the project faces shutdown. To win support, she takes on a hard challenge: going to the scorching Gobi to win a 100-kilometer trail race...

Genre:

Drama

Director:

Wu Feiyue, Qin Xiaoyu

Screenwriter:

Su Jingyuan, Qin Xiaoyu, Zhong Qiu

Producer:

Cai Qingzeng, Guo Wentao

Production Company:

Shanghai Elephant Partners Zhiyuan Pictures Co., Ltd.

About the Director

Wu Feiyue: Winner of Best Documentary at the Golden Goblet Awards of the Shanghai International Film Festival; films he has directed, executive produced or presented have won dozens of major awards at festivals in China and abroad. Founder of Elephant Partners Pictures and Elephant On-Demand Screenings, and executive council member of the Shanghai Film Association. Directed works: Iron Moon and Surging Tides 1978-2008. Executive producer of A Day of Winter and Spring, Mother from Prison, Horses Back to the Southern Hills, The Prisoner and Building a University. Qin Xiaoyu: Director, executive producer and critic; jury president of the Zurong Village Dialect Film Festival. Directed works: Mother from Prison, Iron Moon, Horses Back to the Southern Hills, A Day of Winter and Spring, The Prisoner and Building a University. Executive producer of A First Farewell and The Whisperer.

About the Producer

Cai Qingzeng: Member of the China Film Producers Association, secretary-general of the Film and Creative Industries Alumni Branch of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and innovation and entrepreneurship mentor at the Beijing Film Academy; has won awards at international A-list festivals several times. Works include Iron Moon, Nineties, Time Machine, A First Farewell and A Day of Winter and Spring. Guo Wentao: Founder of Shijie Gonghe, partner at Pushi Intelligent Cloud, Antai EMBA graduate of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and long-time participant in the Gobi Challenge from the 8th to the 20th editions. Drawing on the resources of leading Chinese business schools, with six at the core (Cheung Kong, CEIBS, Tsinghua, Peking University Guanghua, Fudan and Shanghai Jiao Tong), created the cultural brand Shijie Gonghe and has organized nearly 100 cultural and arts events.

About the Screenwriter

Su Jingyuan: Associate professor at the School of Media and Communication, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Works: the film Unidentified Visitor, which won first prize in the Beijing Film Association Cup screenplay competition and was selected for the first New Vision: New Talents and New Works of Shanghai Cinema; the stage play Teacher Paula's Summer, selected for the young artists program of the China National Arts Fund; and the film Good Times at Huadu, which won the 13th Suzhou Five-One Project Award and first prize in the fiction section (teachers' category). Zhong Qiu: Screenwriter. Works: the martial arts series Tiger Leaves the Mountain (produced by Yitong Production, executive producer Chen Sicheng); the theatrical romance film Love's Last Stop (completed, in production); the theatrical youth film Yizhi at Two Hundred Pounds (filmed, unreleased); the crime mystery series Into the Darkest Trail; and the fantasy series Spirit Realm. The original screenplay Yizhi at Two Hundred Pounds was selected for the project markets of the China Golden Rooster & Hundred Flowers Film Festival and the Golden Horse Film Festival; the original screenplay Victoria's Forest was selected for the Shanghai International Film Festival project market; the original screenplay As If We Met was selected for the Chongqing Youth Film Festival project market; and the original screenplay Lost in HongKong was selected for the Vancouver Chinese Film Festival project market.