Only Child, Upward, Downward, Forward, Backward, Rightward and Leftward
Cui Zien
Release year: 2007
Run time: 70 min
Film type: Fiction
Synopsis
Xiao Shao has a house as vast as the sky and the earth. He looks for a housemate. This housemate should be: an only son like Xiao Shao himself, a first time visitor to planet Earth, and he must carry with him a bottle which stores philosophy.
Xiao Chao, Nuonuo and Maomao come to Xiao Shao in succession. They each live with Xiao Shao in a philosophical way. One by one they each leave Xiao Shao, and let him set the bottles containing their philosophies free into the ocean.
In the meantime, in another corner of the world, Xiao Bo is also seeking a housemate, just like Xiao Shao.
Director biography
Cui Zi’en (born Heilongjiang, 1958) is a film director, essayist, and novelist. He became known in the 1990s as an outspoken queer activist. He is known as an avant-garde underground director in China. His notable films about homosexuality include the documentary Queer China, Comrade China (2009), which deals with changes in Chinese LGBT culture over the last 30 years. He has written books on theory and criticism as well as publishing nine novels in China and Hong Kong, one of which, Uncle’s Past, won the 2001 Radio Literature Award in Germany. He also taught at the Beijing Film Academy.