A lm by NIU XIAOYU

2021/China/Drama/100 min/Color
Chinese with English subtitles

Yu Tang Films (Anhui)

Black n Production

present

International Sales

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 LOGLINE
Yezi returns back home by the Flower Fish Pond for summer vacation with
her grandmother, their memories of the past blur the boundaries between
dreams and the reality.

SYNOPSIS
After her college graduation, Yezi comes back home to spend her last
summer vacation with her grandmother, who has been living alone ever since
grandfather passed away. The house is ooded with grandmother’s
memories that gradually begin to take on actual forms in life. Sometimes they
appear as a cat, a plant or a total stranger, while at other times, they manifest
themselves as grandfather or even Yezi’s childhood self. At the same time,
grandmother slowly slips into the abyss of amnesia and time begins to lose
meaning. Haunted by those tireless memories, Yezi nds herself wandering
among fragments of her family history, where she recollects a deserted
childhood and befriends her own past. One night, everyone gathers by the
Flower Fish Pond for a grand farewell. When it seems to be another one of
grandmother’s dreams, all the loved ones decide to stay.

FESTIVALS
Filmmakers of the Present Competition, 74th Locarno

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 DIRECTOR
Niu Xiaoyu was born in Hefei, Anhui province, and graduated from Beijing
Film Academy with a Bachelor’s degree in Animation and Master’s in
Experimental Film. Xiaoyu has independently produced two short lms,
which have been shortlisted in the 10th China Independent Film Festival, the
26th Festival Côté Court and the 12th FIRST International Film Festival
respectively.

FILMOGRAPHY
SUMMER FEVER II (Short, 2017)

SUMMER FEVER (Short, 2013)

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

I am captivated by the emotions that bind people closely. Even if those with
deep bonds do not always stay together till the end, there will forever be
some forms of interaction in between. I believe the deceased family members
come back in my dreams so as to be with me in whichever ways possible. In
that light, VIRGIN BLUE is not about how to face the losses of our loved
ones, but rather about how to be together with them. We cannot avoid losing
those we love or cease the natural course of life. However, this lm o ers a
way to stay forever with what you cherish. 


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 INTERVIEW

1. Would you please talk about your inspiration and process for making
this lm?
My favorite part of summer vacation was to lie on the leather couch and read
novels and watch movies all day. My grandfather would read the newspaper
and go out for a walk, then come back to watch Cross-Strait TV programme
at noon, and watch the News and CCTV4 at night. Grandmother was always
busy in the kitchen. My mother would come back in the evening, my aunt
and uncle would come back on the weekends. I listened to them talking
about their daily troubles and making jokes, talking about gossips and about
recent deaths in the community, I would also be sad. Keeping such a
distance, as if the world’s natural course in life has nothing to do with me, I
would always be with my family and hear about the world from their
perspectives. Listening to the su erings of the others, I felt like that I had
experienced pains myself. In 2013, I made a short lm called SUMMER
FEVER.

Four years later, my grandfather passed away, the stories of the others nally
happened to me. I was no longer calm, and it was hard to be happy. As a
result of the event, I made the second short lm SUMMER FEVER II.

I’m fascinated by the emotions that bind people together, coincidences occur
constantly between people who are very close. I believe that the deceased
will send messages in our dreams and come back in any way they can, to be
with me forever. I believe in love in the universe, I believe that people can
remain close to each other on a conscious level even if the body ceases to
exist.

Following the world of Fish Flower  Pond established in the rst two short
lms, I begin to prepare the feature lm VIRGIN BLUE, which was written in
two sessions in late 2018 and early 2019. The entire script took two weeks to
write. In the previous short lms I made, I was the only crew member. This
feature lm was the rst time I worked with an industrialized team. VIRGIN
BLUE grew into what it is now with the e orts of all cast and crew, like a
wonderful chemical experiment.

2. The backdrop of the lm is your hometown Anhui and childhood

home. The surreal scenes happen mostly by the Fish Flower Pond.
Would you describe the city and the location?
The Fish Flower Pond is only a small section of the entire Hefei park,
however because the pond's roadway has no street lights or guardrails,
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 people often fall into the water when they walk around the pond at night. The
woods on both sides of the road are extraordinarily dense and unscrupulous,
o enders prefer to commit crimes in this area. Many generations of Hefei
people have grown up with various urban legends about the Fish Flower
Pond. My home is on the edge of the pond, which is the home of the
protagonists, I still live there till this day. The pond fed my entire childhood
imagination. Sitting on the back of my grandfather’s bicycle on the way
home, I named almost every tree, and the woods were lled with ba ing
animal sculptures. I was sure that the vicinity of the Fish Flower Pond was full
of monsters and ghosts that could not come out in the daytime. They gather
here because it’s close to the Lotus Flower nunnery nearby and convenient
for rebirth.

3. The Fish Flower Pond is a city space, and the lm is about family
emotions, but you quote a lot of legends. Does these elements come
from local folklores or your imagination？
These elements are neither entirely from the local folklores, nor entirely from
my fantasy. They come from the stories I've heard, the cartoons I've seen,
the games I've played, these materials are shredded and reassembled by my
memories and imagination, therefore a new world is formed.

4. The lead roles are played by your own grandmother and childhood
friend in real life. Did they inspire you? What was it like working with two
non-professional actors you knew very well？
My grandmother has shaped my personality. Under the in uence of her daily
life, I have formed a way and angle of observing things around me. Ever since
I was a child, we had shared our dreams with each other, marveling at the
quirkiness of each other’s. From these memories, which are blurred by
dreams, come the biases and embellishes in our narrative. If my grandma
and I were to exchange our birth times, VIRGIN BLUE would be her lm.

Ye Zi and I grew up together. She is herself in the lm, always in a state of

sleepwalking and always the protagonist of a strange story.

In fact, most of the actors in VIRGIN BLUE are my family and friends.
Everyone was supportive in the shooting process, and it was a very touching
experience. It’s based on the fundamental mutual understanding.

5. How did you design the structure of space and time that connects the
past, the present and the future in the lm?
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 The structure of time and space was designed this way out of my own
experience when I was dreaming. I often blur time and space during the state
of half-asleep and half-awake, and in these layered and complex dreams,
ambiguity is ampli ed.

I hope to weave an intricate maze of time and space, so that ghosts can get
lost by mistake, and if we are all trapped in this maze, we may not need to be
separated, do we?

6. The lm uses a lot of light and shadow refractions, with the ticking of
clocks and footsteps to create a dissociative fantasy. Please talk about
the audio-visual design.
The refraction of light and shadow comes entirely from my real experience
living at home. After my grandfather passed away, I began to observe some
strange shadows and light spots appearing in the house, and I took a lot of
photos and videos to record them. Because I missed him a lot, I thought I
was entitled to take those pictures as evidence that my grandfather had not
completely left the house. When preparing for the feature, the DP helped me
to nd the source of the lights, and recorded the time and physical conditions
for it to appear, and tried to simulate it for the screen.

The footsteps were real. There was a bit of sound design according to the
unsourced footsteps and buzzing that I recorded at home. In the post, we
quickly settled on an aural direction for the lm: to create the unnoticed
magic of the everyday. It’s all based on real fantastical experiences I’ve had
in this room.

7. Musicals are rare in Chinese cinema. Would you please talk about the
musical segments?
The rst song, "Xing Xing Suo", was for Grandmother whose idol was singer
Jiang Dawei. It was a song that Grandma used to listen to in her forties, a
memory of her youth.

The second song "Fisherman's Daughter" is for Grandfather, who would sing
this song on his bed shortly before he died. A song he heard when he was six
or seven years old, a memory of his childhood.

The third song, "Talking to Myself", is a comfort to people like Yezi, a song
sung to our generation tormented by loneliness, fear of loss, eager to escape
reality and unwillingness to grow up.

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 The fourth song "Like an Archangel" is the last song of the lm at the end of
the party, which is the farewell song of the Fish Flower Pond.

The monsters and ghosts also have entertainment needs, their musicals are
equivalent to human karaoke, which are performances for self-soothing.
Musicals enrich the scenes of the monsters and ghosts, and they’re also
important for expressing emotions.

8. Your hand-drawn illustrations appears in the lm. Would you please

talk about the intention for them?
These illustrations are some of my exercises during college in 2012. They are
about a girl who sleepwalks to the Fish Flower Pond one night where she
meets a werewolf and a security guard, and they tell each other about the
sad things they can't say in the daytime. During the post, I talked with my
editor about the illustrations, she proposed to include them in the lm, and
we both liked the nal e ect, for the illustrations broadened the psychological
exploration of Yezi, while the text in the illustrations also became the lines of
the werewolf who never opened his mouth to speak.

9. Can we say the lms of Tsai Ming-liang and David Lynch inspired
you? 
Tsai Ming-liang and David Lynch are both directors I like very much. I have
grown up watching their lms, and  just  like my grandmother's in uence on
me, their lms have expanded my imagination and inspired me to look at
things from a wider range of senses and perspectives. Other directors I like
are Masaaki Yuasa, Nobuhiko Obayashi, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. I
hope they will see my lms one day.

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 CAST
Ye Zi as Yezi

Zheng Shengzhi as Grandmother

CREW

Director Niu Xiaoyu

Scriptwriter Niu Xiaoyu

Director of Photography Deng Xu

Editor Hu Shuzhen

Supervisor of Art Direction Lan Zhiqiang

Art Designer Yuan Yue

Costume Designers Chen Anqi, Li Jiacheng

Director of Sound Zhang Yang

Composer Rubey Hu

Producers Wang Zijian, Zhu Wenhui

FILM SPECIFICATION
Original title: Bu Yao Zai Jian A, Yu Hua Tang（不要再⻅啊，⻥花塘）

English title: VIRGIN BLUE

Year: 2021

Country: China

Language: Chinese

Runtime: 100 min

Camera: ARRI Alexa Mini

Format: Digital, Color

Screening format: DCP

Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1

Frame rate: 24 fps

Sound: 5.1

Resolution: 2K

 PRODUCTION

Black n Productio
Yu Tang Films (Anhui)

CONTACT

Producer: Wang Zijian | jean@black n.cc

Producer: Zhu Wenhui | zhuwenhui1993@126.com

INTERNATIONAL SALES

Rediance
www.rediance lms.com

1703, Block B, Star City International Tower, Jiu Xian Qiao Rd.
Chaoyang District, Beijing, China 100020

CONTACT
Sales: Fen Chen | fen@rediance lms.com

Festival: Jing Xu | jing@rediance lms.com

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