grape 葡萄
Logline
Imprisoned in a bleak room, the only color of the girl’s world comes from a handful of candies placed on a table outside the window of the room – barely within an arm’s reach. When the man imprisoning her returns, the girl must defend the candy she gets with all her strengths.
2022 | experimental/thriller
Written/Directed/Edited/Sound Design by Miao Chen
Produced by Siren Xuanying Lai
Director of Cinematography: Sharon Yanchu Zhou
Writer-Director’s Statement
In the early spring of 2022, a barely clothed woman who lost her sanity was found neck-chained in a filthy cottage in Feng County, China. It was soon exposed to the public that this woman’s alleged husband bought this woman from a human trafficker years ago, raped and forced the woman to give birth to eight children. The incident evoked a nation-wide discussion on women’s situation. This short film, Gape, has been made as part of the public witness and memory of the incident.
Beyond our appeal to female rights, in a post-pandemic era, the film also questions the “lost and found” of our freedom – like our female protagonist, we may ask ourselves: as a precarious individual, did we get our “grape”?
trailer
葡萄……
Grape…
Film stills
2022.9.18.
Filmed in Los Angeles
