CHINA 1000 LIGHTS

CHINA 1000 LIGHTS: MY CHINA
FINALLY, THEY ALSO DISCOVER ME THERE

If I think about when I wanted to make my first movie in China, finding myself already in Nanning for some years with an exciting teaching experience as a professor of Cinematography at Guangxi University, and as an English teacher in some training schools, if I think that this movie, the first documentary I ever written, filmed and edited by me (but absent as actor), how much it costs me in terms of production, the effort of traveling, the urgency in recruiting common people, the phone callings in order to fix appointments and to be received for interviews, or to visit some places frequented by foreigners, the time I spent thinking about some changes on the scriptwriting for its better efficiency (we know that the best ideas do not come from the sky, but when we realize that place inspires us for a change of events, or for a better effect in shooting, or that professional actor suggests us a different performance), the editing done and constantly remixed to make it more "digestible" (it's just a saying, because a movie either you'll like it, or you'll not like it), thinking about all that - well! - at the end, I'd gladly do the so-called exhausting experience again.
The first draft concerned only the purely documentary section, that is KTV, the city and its suburbs, McDonald's and KFC (not because there was an America to discover - we know that Chinese people have always been pro-Americans), Western culinary virtues, internet life, interviews with some foreigners who have opened their own restaurant or a factory of lollipops and sweets in China, or who, like me, that teaches and in his own spare time enjoys appearing in some commercials or TV broadcasts (they pay good - it would be worthwhile just for that), some unknown tourist locations to westerners residing, for which they step in China only for Beijing and the Great Wall, about a kind of foreigner that in China tried his luck as a rapper (and also he married a beautiful woman), the well-known Chinese dancers in the parks at six in the morning (the nearest park was about an hour from my residence, and it was a long time since I was so "early"), the religiosity of foreigners (always present, even in a Country like China which the majority are atheist), the Sunday English corner where foreigners and Chinese meet in order to improve their mutual cultural and linguistic knowledge, the gay bar (only for Chinese - I had a hard time getting an interview. But after, I was well received), various curiosities that are not lacking, and a surprise ending.
But halfway, I realized that the material I had filmed and edited at most could cover about forty minutes.
The project was running aground until I brush up some stories for shorts written for Chinese actors. I had four in the game bag, good and ready, and maybe they could even be enough. But, you know, creativity knows no bounds. And from four, they became seven. I also added an alternative double final. The leitmotif of the seven shorts is love, obviously seen from the eye of an Asian and just somewhat westernized, without changing their origins. Certainly what is Western in these stories is the style of their storytelling, and their editing. The concept of love has become westernized, but remains unaffected by how it is conceived by the Chinese people in its different facets. Interleaving the documentary parts each time with the seven short films, the seven love stories was the meeting point that sealed excellence of the film.
The screenplay consists mainly of the seven love stories of the short films, while the documentary part consists of the only points on which the filming was focused, the topics to be clear, because in this way only later, at the end of the shooting, I was able to decide for a their better fate as some developments turned out to be practically unpredictable.