Shen Ao
Winner Profile
Best Directorial Debut
Director, Lucky Fool
Jury Citation
Shen Ao, director of Lucky Fool, treats a dark crime comedy on a real-life subject with a cool but humorous touch. Within the absurd main plot of a marriage scam combined with murder for insurance money, he brings out the joys and sorrows of ordinary people at the bottom of society, and details such as live streaming, home buying and the preference for sons in Chinese families form a sharp satire of the absurd crime. Winner of Best Directorial Debut.
Lucky Fool: Synopsis
To pay for treatment for his six-year-old son, who has asthma, Wu Hai (Da Peng), egged on by his friend Zhenjiang (Zhang Zixian), deliberately befriends Miaomiao (Liu Yan), an online streamer who, like him, lives on the margins at the bottom of society, and sets out to stage a calculated marriage scam...