Screening
International Tertiary Students Group (Short Film) Finalist
Where the Rabbit Sleeps
Zhao Ying Yi (Beijing Film Academy)
China / 18'47'' / In Mandarin with Simplified Chinese and English subtitles
Ten-year-old Bao Lai learns that her mother is moving south with a new boyfriend—and taking her along. So she grabs her dying rabbit, picks up her friend Xiao He, and sets out to find her father—who disappeared from her life—and the shabby home she once shared with him.The two children drift like sleepwalkers through withered landscapes and abandoned industrial ruins. Steel mills shut down. The city crumbles. Resources run dry. Her friend fades away.These fragile fragments of the past are finally buried inside a tattered childhood sofa, beside a dead rabbit. For Bao Lai, this is her Combray—her own version of In Search of Lost Time. A monument to everything that has quietly disappeared.
