Chen-Chen, Director of The Winter Solstice
“Dreams don’t have closing credits; the movie just keeps going”
Chen-Chen is at the vanguard of modern indie Chinese cinema, taking cinema vérité to depict the dichotomies of modern Asia. He likes to focus his perspective on the little people in contemporary society, and use film language to express worldwide current events and the dilemmas encountered by human beings. It is his creative proposition that the director has always been inclined to throw problems to the audience through the film and trusting them to find their own interpretations. He majored in mathematics and, after graduating from university, he has been working nine-to-five in a bank while striving to become an independent filmmaker.

Although he did not attend a prestigious film school, Chen-Chen has transposed his love of art and cinema into his first film work, The Winter Solstice. He’s a self-taught movie-maker and consumed thousands of video and print works on the film industry while working on this project. He is the screenwriter, producer and director of this passion project and it is impressive to note that The Winter Solstice was completed only six months after Chen-Chen originally acquired access to his first film camera.

His inspiration comes from every day life, witnessing things he sees around him, both at his workplace and around the city where he lives. At the same time, he also likes to study Eastern and Western philosophy and Chinese Taoist culture, considering many of modern life’s issues from that context.

He prefers films that explore human nature and society, as well as philosophical films. He believes that through thinking about human nature, we can understand ourselves and this complex world more clearly. This is what he wishes to achieve with both The Winter Solstice and his future film projects.