USA Film Festival 2019 – The Five Minutes
A grieving businessman uses a special phone booth to contact his dead wife in the past.
Interview with Director Shange Zhang and Producer Yuru Zhang
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
SHANGE ZHANG: I was lucky to grow up in a family that always supported and loved each other, deep in our hearts. However, like most Asian families, we rarely say that we love one another and expressed genuine feelings even though some problems exist. Asian people tend to be more implicit in general, and this also applies to long-term relationships or marriages between couples and how they communicate from day to day.
For years I've been thinking about making a film about the typical case of lack of communication between married couples in China, especially those from an older generation.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
SHANGE ZHANG: In our film The Five Minutes, Yucheng, the workaholic husband never understands why his wife chose to kill herself until he makes the phone call. He finally communicates with her for the only and last five minutes he was given. All she wants is companionship, but that cost them too much - Luli’s life - to have real communication. This is an important subject and film to me, and I hope people who watched our movie could understand why communication matters in relationships.
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
SHANGE ZHANG: The concept and theme in this piece is time. We always think we will have plenty of time to deal with existing problems in a relationship. But, we don’t. While we keep telling ourselves “next time” and allowing ourselves to run away from reality, we are losing some essential things in relationships, and sometimes, it is a life.
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?
SHANGE ZHANG: Speaking of world building, our screenwriter Nichole and I came up and developed this concept of a time travel phone booth, and that allows our protagonist Yucheng to take the last chance to have honest communication with his wife, Luli.
During the pre-production, our director of cinematography, Emre Okten and I planned to visually separate Yucheng and Luli throughout the entire movie to enhance the isolation between these two characters. This helps us understand her depression in this relationship, and this call would never be a quick solution to all the problems that have existed for years between Yucheng and herself.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
YURU ZHANG: The latest review we received is from Orlando Weekly, “the best of this block is Shange Zhang’s The Five Minutes, a Mandarin-language production straight from The Twilight Zone playbook. It reminds us that, even in another dimension, we can never change our past mistakes.”
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
SHANGE ZHANG: Some of them. I thought it's a very Asian story but it turns out a lot of the audiences from different cultural backgrounds can relate to the experience in the movie.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
SHANGE ZHANG: I really appreciate We Are Moving Stories for this opportunity to share stories and thoughts about The Five Minutes. It allows more people to see our movie and the messages we want to share with the audience.
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
YURU ZHANG: Right now, we are still at the early stage of the festival run, and the film has been selected by several international Film Festivals including the 28th Florida Film Festival, 28th Arizona International Film festival, and 49th USA Film Festival, etc.
We are looking for producers, buyers and film festival directors — anyone from the film industry who would be interested in the film, story or concept itself. We also want to get in touch with more journalists to share our visions and stories about the film.
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
SHANGE ZHANG: I make this film to appeal to people to communicate with their heart and express their genuine feeling to their loved ones before it is too late. This five minutes phone booth doesn’t exist in our world, and no one can ever get the chance to talk to deceased people. Every five minutes you spend with them is the one and only time you have in your life, make it worthwhile without regret.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?
SHANGE ZHANG: How often do you spend time with the people you love? I mean, really “be there” with them?
What other projects are the key creatives developing or working on now?
SHANGE ZHANG: I am graduating from the USC School of Cinematic Arts this spring, and I am currently working on my thesis film Caramel. This is a coming of age story about an 18-year-old teenager, Eric, discovering his mom was an infamous 90s porn star, one day before his grandfather’s funeral. A story of self-acceptance and familial love.
I am doing the post-production of Bell’s Pawnshop, a Sci-fi piece about a Chinese pawnshop that allows people to trade their time. I am also at the later stage of writing an Asian superhero movie.
Interview: April 2019
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The Five Minutes
A grieving businessman uses a special phone booth to contact his dead wife in the past.
Length: 9:06
Director: Shange Zhang
Producer: Yuru Zhang
Writer: Nichole DaLaura
About the writer, director and producer:
Born and raised in China. SHANGE ZHANG found his passion for filmmaking and started to work as a freelance director since 2015. As a current production student in USC, the short film he made in 2018, The Five Minutes, was selected by several International Film Festivals including Florida Film Festival, Arizona International Film Festival and won best Sci-fi Short film in 2018 Asian On Film Festival.
NICHOLE DELAURA grew up in Texas where she fell in love with the savagery and magic of the land. After graduating summa cum laude from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts with a BA in directing, she returned for an MFA in screenwriting. She is the recipient of the Edward Small Writing Award and the Jones Scholarship for Women.
YURU ZHANG is a bilingual award-winning film producer who is familiar with Chinese and American film market. She works with the top talents from both countries and has participated in / produced more than thirty film projects. Currently, she is the Project Director of Infinite Harvest Pictures and CEO of One PICTURE. With an MBA, literature and film background, she always believes there is a perfect balance between Art and Business.
Key cast: Zhan Wang (Yu Cheng), Eon Song (Lu Li), Demi Ke (Nurse)
Looking for: film festival directors, journalists, producers
Hashtags used: #Social Change #Sci-fi #Asian
Funders: Self-funded
Where can I watch it next and in the coming month? 28th Florida Film Festival - April 12-21; 49th USA Film Festival - April 24-28; 28th Arizona International Film Festival - April 10-21