Chinese language author and director Jing Zou’s function movie venture A Woman Unknown has gained the highest prize on the Subsequent Step initiative of Cannes Critics’ Week, geared toward supporting filmmakers as they make the transfer from brief movies to their first function.
Impressed by the true phenomenon of generations of ladies who had been deserted in China on account of the nation’s one-child coverage, A Woman Unknown depicts a younger Chinese language girl from the age of six via to her thirties, dwelling in three completely different households.
It’s billed as an intimate coming-of-age story that explores existential ache, self-discovery, and the way one learns to like. The movie is produced by Wang Yang at Paris-based Memoria Movies, which works between France and China.
Born in 1984, Zou is a Chinese language director and author based mostly out of Shanghai and Los Angeles. She comes from a literature background, however she discovered her calling when she started working at Shanghai Worldwide TV station on documentaries as a director and editor. Her brief movie Lili Alone (Duo Li) gained the Leitz Cine Discovery Prize at Critics’ Prize in 2021.
A Woman Unknown was 10 tasks taking part on this yr’s version of Subsequent Step.
Launched in 2014, the Subsequent Step program is reserved for administrators who’ve introduced a brief movie on the Cannes parallel part of Critics’ Week, who can take enrol for an version at any time when they’re prepared with a primary function movie venture.
They’re invited to attend a growth workshop on the Moulin d’Andé artists residence in Normandy in December. Adopted by conferences with producers and gross sales brokers in Paris.
The Subsequent Cease award comes with a 2,500€ endowment and an invite to attend the Cannes Movie Pageant.
This yr’s jury was composed of Roxane Arnold, Head of distribution at Pyramide Movies; Marion Delord, Government Director on the award’s sponsor Hildegarde; Markus Duffner, Head of Locarno Professional and Ioana Stais, Head of gross sales and acquisitions at Heretic.
Previous winners of the prize embody Manning Walker’s Cannes 2023 Un Sure Regard winner Find out how to Have Intercourse.
So far, round 35 tasks supported by Subsequent Step have come to fruition together with Common Language by Matthew Rankin, which is in Administrators’ Fortnight this yr in addition to Berlinale 2024 titles, Some Rain Should Fall by Qiu Yang and Arcadia by Yorgos Zois.
The tenth version additionally noticed the launch of Subsequent Step Quantity II, a hybrid workshop which passed off final September and introduced administrators and composers collectively to work on rating composition as an integral a part of a screenplay.