‘A Girl Builds,’ Story of Feminine Wants, Secures Multinational Backing Forward of Golden Horse Venture Market Pitch (EXCLUSIVE)

Ryuji Otsuka and Huang Ji, the husband and spouse, Japanese-Chinese language directing duo behind “Stonewalling” and “Egg and Stone” have secured multi-national backing for his or her upcoming fourth movie mission “A Girl Builds.”

The movie will depict a Chinese language girl compelled to dwell other than her Japanese husband and their daughter in the course of the pandemic and studying to benefit from the newfound freedom of a pseudo single life. She finds a novel therapeutic massage parlor to fulfill her sexual wants and decides to construct a home again in her dwelling village, regardless of her husband’s disapproval.

“The thought began when Huang thought-about constructing a home for herself in China after the disruption of the pandemic,” the pair mentioned. “From that time, we begin reflecting on modern girls of their forties and older, they fear concerning the lives they’re dwelling now and their lives after they develop outdated. They need to have extra management of their lives, have extra say on what happiness means to them as a substitute of being outlined solely by their obligations to their husbands, kids and households. They yearn for their very own house and time.”

The pair’s manufacturing firm YGP-Movies has been joined by prolific Singapore-based producer and co-production agency Akanga Movie Asia and Island X Photos from Taiwan.

With principal pictures scheduled on location in China within the final quarter of 2024, the mission will take part on the Taipei Golden Horse Movie Venture Promotion (GHFPP) in November. It was beforehand launched at an early stage in final 12 months’s Hong Kong Asia Movie Financing Discussion board.

Akanga, led by producer Fran Borgia, was just lately concerned on this 12 months’s Cannes Critics’ Week Grand Prize winner “Tiger Stripes” and Busan competitors title “Oasis of Now.”

Island X is a just lately began firm headed by veteran competition programmer Kuo Ming-Jung from Taiwan. Present tasks in improvement additionally embrace Rex Ren’s “The Unshakable Future” from Hong Kong and Lee Yi-Shan’s debut “Chewing Gum” from Taiwan, which can also be chosen for this 12 months’s FPP.

Huang and Ryuji first attracted consideration with their Rotterdam 2012 Tiger Award winner “Egg and Stone.” They adopted this with “The Silly Fowl,” which bagged a particular point out on its premiere at Berlinale Era 14+ in 2017. “Stonewalling,” which premiered final 12 months within the Venice Days part, accomplished their so-called ‘intercourse trilogy.” Their decidedly artwork home works have loved profitable competition excursions, with the total trilogy programmed at Movie at Lincoln Middle.

“Huang and Otsuka have a really distinctive strategy to storytelling and filmmaking that is stuffed with particulars within the nuances, the gestures of their characters and a wealthy mise-en-scene. Their sturdy cinematic sensibility and interpretation of Chinese language livelihood is outstanding,” mentioned Borgia.

“Whereas on the core of ‘A Girl Builds’ is a lady’s private journey, the story addresses the larger financial adjustments which can be taking place in China now and that helps audiences to know its folks’s psyche,” mentioned Kuo.