Asian Cinema Fund

ACF Asian Cinema Fund

Asian Network of Documentary(AND) Fund

2017 Asian Network of Documentary (AND) Fund

LIST Lady of the Harbour

Category	BNK Busan Bank Fund
Project	Lady of the Harbour
Director	WANG Shen
Country	Netherlands, China
Director's Profile	Sean Wang(1990) is a Chinese Muslim director and screenwriter. He holds MA in Screenwriting from the Beijing Film Academy. His graduate film Huis Away From Home (2014) is a story about Chinese Muslim immigration in northwest China. It won the Best Student Film awarded by the China Documentary Academy Award and was nominated in Les Ecrans de Chine Documentary Festival in Paris. His short documentary Chinese Canvasser (2015) was nominated at CNEX Chinese Documentary Forum (CCDF), Guangzhou International Documentary Film Festival (GZDOC), and the China Documentary Academy Award.

Synopsis: Nearly two decades ago, Chinese immigrants came to Greece traveling along the similar route as the current refugees. Suzanne is one of them. Before moving to Greece, she had developed a successful business in Bulgaria and was friends with the then Bulgarian prime minister, mafia bosses and celebrities. When the refugee crisis arises, Suzanne decides to organize a Greek Chinese volunteer team to help as an act of redemption for her past. It is not easy - Suzanne struggles to persuade business-oriented Chinese bosses and companies to join and has to face the sarcastic attitude of Western volunteers. Suzanne’s dominant character also does not help. Against all odds, Suzanne gains a lot in the process, and so do her teammates.

Director's Note: As a Chinese Muslim and descendent of immigrants, my childhood is a memory of adaptation, integration, and rejection. Due to this experience, identity of immigrants stands central for my works.
I am fascinated when arriving in Greece, that the Chinese who mostly arrived here poor and illegal 20 years ago, live now in harmony with Greek people and have developed successful businesses ? a subtle cultural match between Chinese and Greek?
In any cases, other than the economic power games like purchasing Piraeus Port, I believe that something from a Chinese perspective in a ‘bottom-up’ matter may help build up a new order - when the entire humanity is under attack by terrorism, we want to tell a story of hope for ‘symbiosis’ between the Greek Chinese, the new immigrants, and the Greek people. Of course, such a story surely does not limit itself to Greece.

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