Last year, the 22nd Shanghai International Film Festival set the short film section as the first step to create a ladder to cultivate new talents. The short film section discovers and encourages more young people to join the film industry in the form of soliciting short films. Du Zhongkun, a young creative artist who contributed to the short film section, participated in the event with his selected work. He felt the enthusiastic encouragement of the filmmakers and the splendor of the film festival. Last year, Du started working on feature films. This year, he directed and produced a short film on the theme of films with iPhone 11 Pro Max, to pay tribute to the 23rd Shanghai International Film Festival and filmmakers who have overcome many difficulties for the reunion of the audience and films.
With the theme of “looking at the light, being the light” as the theme, the film expresses the artistic conception of “seeing ourselves when watching films”, and hopes that the audience who have been away from the screen for a long time can walk into cinemas and be reunited with the “themselves in films”.
A bold tone of black-and-white was used in the film. Two men moved a mirror into a silent forest. He lay behind the mirror and started to play the harmonica. People came looking for music. There were lovers who were shooting wedding photos, playing children, tourists, security guards and gardeners in the park. All these people gathered in front of the mirror and stared at it. At that moment, it seemed that the mirror had incarnated into a big screen, reflecting all walks of life in the world. In the image of nearly three minutes, the author paid homage to many film history classics such as Two Men and a Wardrobe, The Shining, Labyrinth Tale,
Landscape in the Mist and Noche, showing his strong feelings for films.
Du Zhongkun believes that films are a kind of the many mirrors in the world. Each of them presents a different world. When we look at the mirror, the mirror is also looking at us. Last year, his work To The Wild Island was awarded Jury Special Recommended in the short film section. He said that he would also participate in the short film section of the 23rd Shanghai International Film Festival because he could go straight forward from here into the temple of the films.