Asian Cinema Fund

ACF Asian Cinema Fund

Asian Network of Documentary(AND) Fund

2006 Asian Network of Documentary (AND) Fund

LIST Paradise Not Far (aka. Long River/Chang He, 長河)

Category	PanStar Fund
Project	Paradise Not Far (aka. Long River/Chang He, 長河)
Director	Wenhai HUANG
Country	China
Director's Profile	Born in 1971. HUANG graduated Beijing Film Academy in 1995 after majoring in cinematography. From 1996 to 2000, he worked as a TV journalist for the news channel CCTV in China. In 2000, he produced Suburb of Beijing and in 2002 he directed, shot and edited In the Military Training Camp which was invited to Montreal International Film Festival. With Floating Dust(2004), he received the `Georges de Beauregard Prize` at Marseille International Documentary Film Festival in 2005. In the following year, he also received Grand Prix at Cinema du Reel in Paris with Dream Walking(2005).

Synopsis: Located inside a common building on a banal street of a small provincial city in the middle of China, the "Lotus Fine House" can be found. The house is a "Jushi Lin", meaning that it is a place where the lay Buddhists can stay for two or three months each year to pray for Buddha. A place where people can live together as a community following Buddhist principles. This lay Buddhist Lodge was built by a woman who spent all her savings for it. Most of the people who come are women, the middle-aged and the old. They hope to polish up their lives and souls via Buddhism. They formed "Zhu Nian Tuan" (Helping and Praying Group) which gives terminal care to the lonely old and disabled people as well as conduct praying ceremony for the dead. All that they do are free.

Director's Note: The people at the "Lotus Fine House" are seeking for and practicing some moral limits in the course of social change of China; trying to build some new values by the religious way and concrete behavior where the past values have been deconstructed by the market economy thoroughly. This documentary will be a portrait of this community, their dreams, their actions, how they accomplish their self-education and in which sense they participate in the construction of the new civil society in today`s China.

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