Avant-garde director Zhang Shanshan depicts the complexity of time in films
2023-09-21 Ecns.cn Editor：Mo Honge
By Wang Peng
The Foam, an experimental short film directed by Zhang Shanshan was officially selected for the Silicon Beach Film Festival and screened at the TCL Chinese Theaters in Hollywoodat 2:00 p.m. local time on Sept. 8.
Three years ago, another of her films Paradise Program was also screened at the same theater.
Zhang ingeniously uses images, space, sound, and actions to create a huge metaphorical space between the film prop “foam heads” and the protagonist. Within only a few minutes, the film is filled with anxious thoughts, profound life experiences, and penetrating questions about the entire human relationship, love, and death.
From the creation of her film, we can see that her vision and form have been constantly expanding by integrating the installation art and the performance art, so as to explore both the documentary nature of film narration and the abstract art that can be drawn upon, and the theme has also been greatly expanded. As a Chinese filmmaker of the new generation with outstanding artistic ability she has been highly recognized by experts in the field of film worldwide.
The Foam film still (Photo provided to ECNS)
The Foam: Intimacy is a way to confront mortality
For Zhang, The Foam makes animportant step in her exploration. which hasindeed been constantly recognized.She received an Honorable Mention at the 15th SHORT to the Point in Romania and was officiallyselected atthe 8th Silicon Beach Film Festival, the 10th Best Short Competition, and the 14th Pune Short Film Festival.
In the field of short films, all the aforesaid honors are of great value for most filmmakers.
At Silicon Beach which used to be located by many famous companies such as YouTube, Google, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Amazon, the film festival founded by Jon Gursha and Peter Green has become a cutting-edge cinema trend indicator.
As one of the avant-garde film festivals in the United States, the Best Short Competition collected films from 72 countries, including feature films, documentaries, experimental films, music videos, etc.
The SHORT to the Point Film Festival in Romania is dedicated to the distribution and dissemination of various short films around the world. The Pune Short Film Festival in India, one of the most noteworthy and valuable short film festivals in Asia, is an innovative international short film festival that invites aspiring and upcoming independent filmmakers with the purpose of creating opportunities for global filmmakers.
The Foamhas not only been recognized at the film festivals but also exhibited in the galleries. After being premiered in New York City and China, the film joined the Art on Loop Europe touring exhibition organized by The Holy Art Gallery this summer in Paris, Amsterdam, and Brussels. Also exhibited in London at the Mix Identities hosted by Itsliquid. The 33rd Onion City Experimental Film Festival organizer invited Shanshan Zhang to serve on the 2023 screening committee after watching this film.
The Foam is regarded as an extension of director Zhang's theme of "love and mortality". “I believe that intimacy is not only a way to fight against loneliness but also a way to fight against mortality,” she said.
As an intimate relationship fades away, the ultimate questions of loneliness and death resurface in one's consciousness, becoming the initial state that an individual must confront. The ideas generated during such a transformation are not only about the relationship between two people but also about the reconstruction of reality and illusion as well as all possibilities. Meanwhile, the film also visualizes the spiritual unity and confrontation between two people in an intimate relationship through symbolic language.
This short film has both a profound theme and a contemporary style full of unexpected details and surprises.
Deepening the power of unique female sensibility creates an overflowing tension. The two female protagonists in the film symbolize not only the depth and connection between people but also inseparable love.
The Foam film still (Photo provided to ECNS)
From China to the U.S.: seeking in spiration from changes
"I started my journey of arts in China. During my undergraduate studies, I delved into traditional film screenwriting, filming techniques, and post-production processes, to explore a variety of themes," Zhang said.
After obtaining a bachelor's degree in Television Editing and directing at the Communication University of China, Nanjing in 2014, she continued her studies in the United States and started to systematically study experimental films. In 2019,she received a master's degree in Filmmaking at the Maryland Institute College of Art. She moved to New York City after graduationand expanded her creative horizons with contemporary art. Since then, she has combined video art, installation, performance, and space art with higher artistic effects.
On April 10, 2019, Paradise Program, a narrative sci-fi short film directed by Zhang, premiered at the Parkway Theatre in Baltimore, MD.Thisfilmbuildsupa near-futureworld where human memory can be fully recorded and developed electronically and the program can "think" like a living individual, which in turn gives rise to eternal mental existence.
This film received 10 nominations at different film festivals around the world and won many awards, such as Best Sci-Fi Short Film/Female Director Honorable Mention/Best Lead Actor/Best Art Direction/Editing Honorable Mention/Best Production in South Film and Arts Academy Festival, Chile and the Best Short Film/Best LGBTQ Film in Platonic Film Competition, India.
The short film has also been screened on the East and West coasts of the United States and in Rome and exhibited in Amsterdam, Paris, and Brussels this summer. During her creation of Paradise Program, Zhang realized for the first time that artists carry significant societal responsibility . and that art should be presented in a more diverse and warm manner. Meanwhile, artwork should also focus on the future.
Paradise Program Premiere (Photo provided to ECNS)
As a matter of fact, beyond the films Paradise Program and The Foam, she also tried to seek innovation in her experimental short film, NYC Dream. She created the film within six months, reflecting the human aspects of the global COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. In addition, her poetic short film Routine, documentary Snail, narrative short film Tutti, and film Synthetic Lovers, in which she served as director of photography, poetic short film 11,565 Kilometers, in which she served as colorist, and comedy short film Beard Balm,in which she served as the Gaffer,allreceived unanimous compliments from the film crew members and recognition from industry experts.
It is worth mentioning that she joined the charity for autistic children in 2012 to have an in-depth understanding of this special group of kids and their families producing the documentary Snail and the narrative short film Fish in the Tank, which have been highly recognized and praised by the autism community and professional filmmakers.
Snail film still (Photo provided to ECNS)
Since then, she has been dedicated to supporting autistic children. Last year, she collaborated with John Qu, a director in Los Angeles, to produce the short documentary Music Calling. The film premiered in Los Angeles, California, and received Congressional Recognition from U.S. Congresswoman Judy Chu for her “high standards of excellence and outstanding achievements and unwavering dedication to supporting autistic children and their families”. Zhang will continue to work with Qu to produce 10 documentary series about the growth of autistic children in the future.
Signature: The artistic spirit and characteristics of her own
Zhang firmly believes that art should transcend the times to provide responses and possibilities to the physical and spiritual problems faced by people in the modern age.
"I keep experiencing separation during my growing process, which has brought me some strong feelings. In the Eastern and Western cultures, people have different understandings and discussions of death, and fight against the physical and spiritual demise of mortality in different ways, which therefore became the priority theme of my works and the reason why I chose sci-fi as the main narrative type of my films,” she said.
Zhang Shanshan at work. (Photo provided to ECNS)
During the pandemic, Zhang deeply felt the close relationship between people and the environment as well as the city, depicted in her latest installation titled It Is the Time You Have Wasted On Your Rose That Makes Your Rose So Important.
Over the past decade of creation, Zhang has endeavored to broaden the presentation of moving image and transform from traditional narrative films to multi-media. She intends to make use of the interaction between materials and images in different spaces to explore the distance between the image and the audience through different ways of presentation. She also tries more materials from more viewing angles to create space for the moving image, so that the audience can become part of the work for better perception instead of being only standers-by, which can further expand the possibilities of participation.
Despite a lot of achievements and recognition, she has recently embarked on a long journey.
Paradise Program film set (Photo provided to ECNS)
