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Street Spirit
Genre: Drama
Runtime: 1 hour 50 minutes
Language: Mandarin
Production Year: 2023
Douban: https://movie.douban.com/subject/36357799/
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/street-spirit-2023/
Synopsis
On the riverside of a small island in the university town, a girl and her friend reunited after a long absence, and began to walk and talk around the space between a viaduct and a convenience bridge.
During the walk, the camcorder carried by the girl aroused the interest of the boy. On the first day of parting, the girl gave the camcorder that she had filmed for months to the boy as a gift, however, a rift appeared in their friendship on the following day. And then, more contradictions and secrets about the camcorder and the year they lost contact, were gradually revealed.
He was wandering aimlessly one afternoon with his friend.
Nothing was happening. But in each of them, at that moment, a sense of infinite possibilities.
Nothing was happening.
Or else one could say that it was this consciousness of possibility, in fact, that was happening.
Director’s Note
Street Spirit tells a story about two people’s stroll and talk within two days. These characters are nameless, because they don’t need to refer to one another by names, and because the film allows them to maintain anonymity. On the first day, they both kept a polite distance; on the second day, a tightening distance emerged, and their histories and personalities revealed, while the conversation plunged into the dark side untouched on the previous day. A dark side which can only be told and be imagined, the dark side of this film.It is true that a film is a succession of moving images captured by the camera, but I am inclined to think that it is the invisible, the off-screen, somehow makes the visible a reality.
Such a relationship between the visible and the invisible reflects our real lives. When I am having a conversation with a friend, their voice, tone, speed and logic are always a crystallization of their entire history.
But I can only communicate with their words, their personal histories belong always to the invisible, and I must greet them like a stranger. Therefore, a character, fictional or not, should keep an absolute right to their mysteries.
Why this title, Street Spirit? It is the title of a song I love. But for this film, “Street” may refer to the part that is visible, while “Spirit” is its opposite, being the invisible world outside the frame – shadows of space, of an irreversible past.
A key tidbit behind-the-scene: since I bought the camcorder that would be featured in the film, I only managed to write the second part of the script after I learnt its mechanics, and this law of the videotape in fact became a part of my writing. I don’t consider myself a great architect of fiction, and the fiction in this film is only written from compositions of our reality: a camcorder with its suspicious temper, some places I used to lived, and the magical and anonymous bodies of my two actors.
“One year from today something extraordinary will happen to us,
something that will change our lives forever.”
Cast
TAN SHIXIAN – the girl
CAI BAOFENG – the boy
The Camcorder – itself
The year passed, and on the appointed day, nothing extraordinary happened.
“No matter, the important thing will happen next year.”
Crew
Director/Writer: YANG CHUQI
Writer/Producer: HU YONGLING
Co-writers: TAN SHIXIAN / CAI BAOFENG
Producer: YANG MILE
Assistant Director: WU TONG
Script Supervisor: YUAN ZHANBIN
Director of Photography: CHARLES DENG
1st Assistant Camera: HE JIAXUAN
Recording: TENG YUANHAI
Assistant Recording: CHEN SHENGWEN
Makeup Artist: XIONG YANG
Camera Assistants:
LI ANDI / LIU XIWEN / WEI JIAYUN / ZENG DELONG / HE QIAO / LIANG GUOHAO / ZHEN JIAYIN
Gaffers:
LI JIARUI / LIU XIWEN / ZHONG CHENGYOU / WEI YIYANG
Associate Producers:
A728 CRYPTO ART TEAM / WU PANXI / REN ZHEN
DIT: ZHONG CHENGYOU
Film Editor/Colorist: YANG CHUQI
Sound Designer: MO JINGYU
When the second year rolled around, the same thing happened: nothing.
All through the years of high school, they continued to commemorate that day.
Director
Yang Chuqi, an independent director. He has been involved in producing and directing several films while studying in Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts since 2019. Documentary films The Rangers and We Wandered through the Cracks of the Walls and Were Consumed by the Tiolet directed by him had been selected and awarded in number of film festivals. In 2023, He shot his first feature film Street Spirit as college graduation work with very little budget.
Director’s filmography:
The Rangers , Documentary short, Dec 2021
Cool Memory , Narrative short, Jan 2022
We Wandered through the Cracks of the Walls and Were Consumed by the Tiolet , Documentary short, Jun 2022
A Walk , Experimental short, Nov 2022
Not with ceremony, but simply with acknowledgement.
Film Still
It was not that they still expected a miracle to happen.
Behind-The-Scene
But, more curiously, over the years
-An excerpt from BOOK OF MEMORY, by PAUL AUSTER
they had both become attached to the memory of their prediction.
Technical Information
Shooting Format: Digital
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Audio Format: Stereo, 5.1
Runtime: 110min
