Pandemic-Era Longing to Gather Fed Qiu Jiongjiong’s Tokyo Competition Title ‘Fuxi: Four Tales of Feasting’
Qiu Jiongjiong’s film “Fuxi: Four Tales of Feasting”, shaped by the pandemic-era desire to gather and share meals, is competing at the Tokyo International Film Festival. Across four fantastical stories set in different eras, it uses food to explore life, death and the relationship between individual lives and the wider universe.
The film is spoken entirely in the Leshan dialect of Sichuan province, which Taiwanese actors Lee Kang-sheng and Lee Hong-chi learned with help from dialect coaches. Lee Kang-sheng plays two elderly women, while Lee Hong-chi portrays Song dynasty poet Su Dongpo. “Fuxi” is Qiu’s first feature with professional actors and follows his earlier film “A New Old Play”; an exhibition connected to the film is running at Chengdu’s A4 Art Museum until 31 January.
In short
- Qiu’s Tokyo competition film centres on meals and gathering.
- Four stories link different eras through food.
- The cast worked with coaches to speak Sichuan’s Leshan dialect.
Explained simply
Qiu Jiongjiong is a Chinese filmmaker from Sichuan, and his earlier film A New Old Play brought attention to his work. His new film uses four imagined stories from different periods to connect eating and shared meals with questions about life, death and the universe.
The film is spoken in the Leshan dialect, from Qiu’s home region, and features Taiwanese actors Lee Kang-sheng and Lee Hong-chi, who learned the dialect for their roles. Lee Kang-sheng plays two elderly women, while Lee Hong-chi plays Su Dongpo, a poet from China’s Song dynasty.