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Southern Edge of the Cloud

Alon Chan
Hong Kong, 2017, 40 min.

In Mandarin with English subtitles.
This film is family friendly.

Xinxin and Musu are Naxi (Nashi) ethnic group's young people in Yunnan. These two young siblings were raised by their grandmother in a rural village where people still practise Dongba language (a series of ancient dialects and the ancient pictographic writing) and Dongba culture. Xinxin and Musu wanted to follow the heart of their most beloved one, their grandmother, so they decided to start an endless journey to look for 'the Southern Edge of the Cloud', a place their grandmother dearly loved although they do not really know where it is exactly. During the trip, they met by accident a young French guy Loic, a smartphone-indulged. When this 'outlander' jumped into Xinxin and Musu's 'white cloud van', everything started to change... and Loic could never imagine he was just starting a mysterious journey... a journey of pureness and simplicity...

Director's Statement

This movie is about a journey of pureness and simplicity between a young couple from different cultures (modern western culture and ancient Dongba culture) and a Nashi nanny of a rural village in a mountain in Yunnan. This unexpected encounter becomes a beautiful page of their life. And I also hope that it will become an unforgettable journey for my audiences. Dongba culture is practised by Nashi ethnic minorities, an extinguishing ethnic group. There are only 300,000 Nashi left in the world, most of them living in Yunnan. They admire and protect the beauty of nature, and respect the natural life. People there still practise Dongba language, their written form is the only practicing pictographic writing in the world. Each character, the drawing, represents a word. Their culture, their writing and their ethnics deserve being protected. Through this film, I hope our audiences can feel this beauty of simplicity and pureness of life and start to cherish what they have around them. A simple little thing becomes precious if we appreciate it. Let's switch off our mobile and start to appreciate the beauty of nature and the simple life.

Category: Drama, Award Winner.
Themes: Community, Culture, Family, Indigenous, Road Trip, World Cinema.