Beijing-based Rediance has acquired worldwide rights to Chinese director Liu Jiayin’s All Ears, a drama starring Hu Ge and executive produced by award-winning filmmaker Cao Baoping.
Rediance will launch sales on the feature at the European Film Market (EFM) this week.
Hu, from Diao Yinan’s 2019 Cannes Competition title The Wild Goose Lake, plays a mediocre screenwriter who turns to writing eulogies to make ends meet. As he listens to the life stories of the ordinary deceased people from their families, he finds a new footing in life. Leo Wu and Qi Xi co-star along with Huang Lei and White K.
It marks the first film for writer/director Liu since Oxhide II, which played in Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes in 2009 and Rotterdam’s Bright Future. It followed debut feature Oxhide, which won the Caligari Film Award and Fipresci jury prize when it played in the Berlinale’s Forum strand in 2005. Both titles are experimental hybrid documentaries, focusing on the daily lives of Liu and her parents in their cramped apartment.
Despite not being an autobiography, the film is drawn from Liu’s personal experience and internal struggles over the years.
It was shot in spring 2022 in Beijing and is in post-production. The feature is backed by Cao’s Beijing Benchmark Pictures. Cao is a filmmaker known for directing The Dead End, which won the Golden Goblet at Shanghai International Film Festival in 2015, and Einstein And Einstein, which received a special mention from the Generation 14plus jury at the Berlinale in 2014.
Meanwhile at EFM, Rediance is also promoting two titles playing in the Berlinale’s Encounters strand: Wu Lang’s feature debut Absence, starring Lee Kang-Sheng and Li Meng; and Belgian filmmaker Bas Devos’ Here; as well as All Tomorrow’s Parties, from Silver Bear jury prize winner Zhang Dalei, which stars Zhou Xun and Wang Yibo, and is in the running for the Shorts Competition.
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