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The poster of "The Verse of Us". |
How will you feel inside 650 meters underground? "It's just like I am going to the hell," one coal miner who has been working in underground environment for 16 years reacted in the documentary film "The Verse of Us". The film themed on the life of bottom workers, who have also interests in poetry. On Nov 2, a preview of the film was organized in Jinjiang and it touched 200 audiences, deeply.
The 104-minute film focuses on the real life situation and inner world of bottom workers in the society while the progress of fast city expanding. The story of them and the poetry created by them constitute the unknown story behind "Made in China".
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Wu Feiyue, director of "The Verse of Us" is a generation of 80s. [Photo/Strait News] |
Wu Feiyue, a local Jinjiang's youth is the director of the film. By chance in 2013, he met the group of workers who were also interested in poem. There are over ten thousands of such poets in the 310 million workers in China. Most of them work hard during the day as forklift controllers, blasters and coal miners, and contribute themselves to poetry writing on labor, love, sadness at night. When Wu had read their poems, he was shocked and moved by the penetrating power in the poems, and then only he decided to do something for them. The moving poems, the strong wills and the touching stories of the workers are what Wu had expects to share with the world in the film.
Interestingly, he used to be a financial journalist and focused on enterprises and brands in the past, not the workers. The journalist turned director now feels lucky to have listened to the inner voice of Chinese workers, who are in large numbers but easily ignored by the society. And that he has been able to spread the message for both China and even the world to pay attention to them and help the workers.
"The Verse of Us" has been nominated for award in International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). IDFA is one of the biggest festivals for documentary film, in fact it is said to be the Oscar Award for documentary films.
It also has been nominated for Best Documentary prize and Best Editing prizes in the 52rd Taiwan Golden Horse Awards by far.
In addition, being the only Chinese language documentary, "The Verse of Us" has won Best Documentary prize of Golden Goblet Award in the 18th Shanghai International Film Festival earlier this year.
While talking about his award winning documentary he said that, "It was not made for the award. Actually we wanted to let the public know more about the soul and destiny about these workers through our film." However, Wu had said in an interview earlier," The award gave us the confidence that our hard work in the past one year has paid off, and it is very meaningful and worthwhile."
The documentary is also looking forward for winning Best Documentary Film prize in the Oscar next year.
Edited by Shahnawaz Akhtar
