Dear You in Venice: Film Promotion and Special Screening

Sept. 7: an on-stage presentation and a Teochew greeting

The Chinese-language film exchange began at 6 p.m. local time on Sept. 7 at the Italian Pavilion on Venice’s Lido. Jointly organized by the China Film Foundation, the China Film Association and Cinecittà’s international department, it presented five Chinese-language films with different subjects. Cinecittà international department director Roberto Stabile and Fu Yanhui, chief planner of the China Film Foundation’s Chinese-language film global promotion series, opened the event with remarks about prospects for China-Italy film cooperation and their hope of using the Venice festival as a platform for Chinese-language cinema’s international circulation.

Dear You was presented by Lan Hongchun, Zheng Xuanxuan and actors Li Sitong, Wang Yantong and Wang Xiaohui. Huasheng Online described the film as a story of devotion spanning half a century, told through Chaoshan qiaopi. The on.cc report added that the director and three actors greeted the exchange audience in Teochew.

Sept. 8: meeting viewers before the film began

The following day, Dear You held a special screening and creators’ meet-and-greet in Venice, one stop in the 83rd Venice International Film Festival Chinese-language film global promotion series. Xinhua’s on-site account records the team taking the stage to meet viewers before the film. Its photographs show Lan Hongchun speaking, Li Sitong interacting with the audience, and Wang Yantong, Wang Xiaohui and Li attending together.

The wider Chinese-language film global promotion series ran from Sept. 6 to 8, including market screenings, talks and the film exchange. For the Dear You screening specifically, the organizer was Beijing Zhuoyi International Media, with Italy’s Huaxia Cultural Association, the Milan Meiqi Charity Foundation and Venice’s New Marco Polo Road cultural association as co-organizers. Xinhua’s on-site report describes more than 150 Chinese and Italian viewers waiting for the film that afternoon.

Li Sitong’s first European visit and Qin Shasha’s second viewing

Li Sitong said she and many of her colleagues were visiting Europe for the first time. While filming in Chaoshan, she had not imagined that the movie would travel so far. In Venice, she hoped its story would bring warmth to more people around the world.

Chinese viewer Qin Shasha described a return viewing to Xinhua’s reporter. This was her second time watching the film; seeing a story about home and relatives while abroad affected her differently. She was also surprised and moved to be able to see it in a cinema during the Venice festival.

What Fincato and Zhang said about the film

Xinhua’s dispatch recorded Laura Fincato’s response to the film. She said its themes of family, distance and roots could resonate with Italians too, because many Italians had left their hometowns and still wished to preserve their identity and memory while living abroad. The same dispatch recorded her remarks on cinema and Italian-Chinese cultural connections: amid rapid advances in artificial intelligence and digital technology, human warmth remained valuable. She praised the film’s humanity and hoped to see more Chinese stories screened overseas.

The Chinese Consulate General in Milan records Zhang Chenggang’s attendance and remarks at the Italian special screening and China Film Night on Sept. 8. He discussed cinema’s role in cultural exchange and mutual understanding between China and Italy, and referred to the 310,000 overseas Chinese in Italy when connecting the film with real lives established far from home.

Separately, Xinhua recorded Zhang’s description of the narrative in his speech. He said the film drew on qiaopi archives included in the Memory of the World Register to tell a story of decades of devotion among Chinese emigrants to Southeast Asia. These remarks concerned the film’s storytelling, a different emphasis from the discussion of contemporary Chinese communities in the consulate’s record.