Ancient Species
Director：Lin Zhi-zhan
XIONG,Jie-feng is naive but not easily-influented. Different from other Chinese young people who prefer working in the cities, XIONG decided to go back to his hometown, Pingzhai Village in Yunnan Province, and started to plant the "Red Rice Seed," a kind of ancient species.
The so-called organic agriculture has had an age-old tradition in China. The skills have been passed from generation to generation. This is the major reason why farmers connect to the land both historically and emotionally. The "Red Rice Seed" can only be planted in a traditional and organic way. If the plantation was to succeed, the problems resulted from scientific fertilizers and the overuse of chemicals since the 20th century can all be resolved.
However, the "Red Rice Seed" can never be as easily planted and as richly harvested as the newer species. More and more farmers decided to use the new species, and that causes the extinction of the ancient species.
XIONG, who is simple-minded and straightforward, tries his best to overcome all the difficulties to plant the "Red Rice Seed". At the same time, finding a young woman willing to marry him seems even more difficult than plating the "Red Rice Seed" successfully...
Director
LIN, Zhi-zhan
Born in Taipei County, Taiwan, and now lives in Kunming of Mainland China. He did his bachelor's and master's degree in Architecture. After the 921 earthquake on September 21st 1999 inTaiwan, he started to make documentaries and entered the Graduate Institute of Sound and Image Studies in Documentary, Tainan National University of Arts. After graduation, as LIN decided to move to Mainland China in the hope to make documentaries that bring peopletrue happiness. He has made several documentary films including One of My Stories-Can't Go Down the Hill After Going Up, MyDeer Port, and Cannot Retrea But Advance (Guo He Zu Zi).
From the Director
In a seminar held after the release of a documentary about the migrant workers in the villages located inside the cities, someone said that he couldn't imagine that with the current living standards, some people still lived in such poor conditions. That's right. Most people can hardly see how people live under different living conditions, but there are even fewer people would have come to realize that the reason we have a better life is strongly related to "their" living standards. As some people are getting rich, how do they consider those who help them becoming rich? Exactly why do the migrant workers still flock into the cities every year at all costs? Maybe we can find some clues by looking at the status quo in the rural areas these days.
Some people asked me whether there were some differences between this documentary and the very popular film"Let It Be" in Taiwan. Of course, the point of view and shooting methods would be different. However, while shooting the film, I had a profound feeling that "Let It Be" marks an ending speechless for the farmers, whereas I was recording the foreword and the prologue.
Film Festival
※ Award EARTH VISION Award at the 18th EARTH VISION
※ Taipei Film Festival, competition, 2009
※ The 7th GZ Doc, screening, 2009
※ The 5th REEL CHINA Documentary Biennial