妈 - má : mother
Over the past 20 years, the Chinese Communist Party has given orders to eradicate Falun Dafa, a peaceful belief system. Over 1.5 million people have been imprisoned, sent to labour camps, tortured and killed because of their belief.
This dance is based on the story of Sophia, who's mother spent years in and out of prison. When Sophia was eight, she made a peaceful protest in solidarity with her mother in prison and wrote on a street wall in her home-town 'Falun Dafa is good'.
The words remain on that wall still now.
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Jessica KneippDirectorProtect Me You, Stung, Deadpoint, Far Nearer
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Kimberly SummerDirector
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Jessica KneippWriter
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Kimberly SummerWriter
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Jessica KneippProducer
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Kimberly SummerProducer
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Becku GuoKey Cast"Dancer"
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Jade LorKey Cast"Mother "
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Raffaele GiordanoCinematographer
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Robyn Leander BuntingCostume Design
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Makiko RyujinStills Photographer
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Steve MastersonComposer
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Kimberly SummerComposer
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Kimberly SummerEditor
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Jessica KneippEditor
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Raffaele GiordanoColourist
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Project Type:Experimental
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Genres:Short, Dance, Experimental, HumanRights, Women
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Runtime:6 minutes 37 seconds
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Completion Date:February 11, 2019
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Production Budget:1,250 USD
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Country of Origin:Australia
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Country of Filming:Australia
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Language:English
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Shooting Format:Digital
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Aspect Ratio:1.78
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Film Color:Color
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First-time Filmmaker:No
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Student Project:No
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DANCIN.FEST International Short Dance Film CompetitionSt Etienne
France
June 14, 2019
French Premiere -
Eve Film FestivalOttawa
Canada
October 27, 2019
Canadian Premiere
Kimberly Summer is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Melbourne. With a music performance and arts background, she went on to extend her creative practice by completing a Bachelor of Contemporary Arts (Film TV & Photography) in 2008. After successfully completing the film Victoria attachment program for SBS Film, Saved, she went on to build upon her career in film and television with the mentorship and guidance from many Melbourne-based filmmakers. Her work places great importance in representing a diverse set of creative people in Melbourne, from female dance groups to African immigrant artists and various underground musicians. Having grown up in a small town in the Mornington Peninsula in the 90’s, lack of cultural and ethnic variance and support for women in the professional field has spurned her on to create platforms in which other like minded women can represent and fulfill their creative visions.
https://kimsomeone.com/design-art/
Jessica Kneipp is a filmmaker based in Melbourne. Graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2013 with a Bachelor of Film and TV, in 2013 she was awarded a grant for Outstanding Student Achievement. Her film ‘Protect Me You’ was selected for screening at the 2016 Dhaka International Film Festival in Bangladesh in the Women Filmmakers Section. She has an interest on films that reveal truth and focus on outsiders told from a female perspective. Each year she has been working with the VCA to facilitate filmmaking workshops to Aboriginal teenage girls in rural Victoria. She spent ten years in London working as a producer in a photo-agent before returning to Australia. She worked as a 3rd Assistant Director on Neighbours TV, wrote articles on film for The Vision Times online with a focus on human rights, and is now a mother who freelances as a Creative Consultant for documentaries. She collaborates on films with culturally diverse characters and stories with heart.
www.jessicakneipp.net
Kim (co-director) who has a strong background in dance and I met each other while working on a tv series. She approached me saying she was interested in the human rights articles I share to do with Falun Dafa and the persecution against it happening in China. As it is a subject that gets very little media attention, I shared with her some first hand accounts I knew from some women living in Australia who have escaped the persecution.
One was a young woman in her 20s, Sophia, who had shared the most incredible story of how, while growing up in China, her home would often be ransacked and her mother taken to prison and tortured for practising this peaceful meditation discipline which is pretty much like Chinese yoga, or qigong with three guiding principles; Truth, Compassion, Tolerance.
Sophia talks in such a gentle way but holds no hatred toward the CCP who tore the family apart and would try to even use her as a child to get her mother to renounce her faith. As an 8-year-old she wrote on a wall in her village 'Falun Dafa is Good' in chalk in solidarity as her mother was behind bars for being a good person and refusing to give that up.
Sophia lives in Australia where it is safer for her to be herself and practice Falun Dafa freely. On a trip back to China she visited her old village and the chalk writing was still on the wall that she wrote all those years ago. It had not washed off and was still legible.
There was something really beautiful about the resilience of these people that inspired us to express the feel of this in an experimental dance film.
We were inspired by Brothers Quay - "Institute Benjamenta," for the feelings this style of cinema evoke.
We collaborated with Melbourne-based drummer from Bird Blobs Steve Masterson who completed the percussion element of our short films soundtrack which was like the skeleton of the sound and Kimberly added the feminine sounds for the emotion.
Through dance, we hope to reach a different audience with a story like this, it is our wish for the persecution to end and people will start to understand why it is so wrong.