The Secret

Language: Mandarin, English Subbed

团线

UK Premiere

Synopsis He Huang’s parents quarreled frequently. Guo Yu grew up in a family with a similar situation. After knowing Yu, Huang sympathised with Yu and decided to give Yu a special gift. After Huang spends a long time knitting a kneelet and putting it into Yu’s locker, Yu’s reaction to the kneelet is not so satisfying…

Director’s Statement The idea of shooting The Secret comes from a story that has interested me for a long-time in child psychology during the period where I had vague gender awareness. The story comes from partial reality. I was told this story by my sister, who was in the fourth grade at primary school, and I immediately came up with the idea of making a film. In the script, I let out the time-place relationship to simplify the story as much as possible. I insisted on the first long shot and the last super-long shot. In terms of the tone of the film, it is made to be closer to reality, and I expected to make it different from the soft pale tone as those in school plays. Children’s gender awareness is very vague and ambiguous, and I consciously made it ambiguous as the story was reconstructed from a child’s memory. Just like what the Chinese title indicates, everything is like a ball of twine.