Breaking the Silence
(Piao liang ma ma)
by Zhou Sun
China
Script: Zhou Sun, Heng Liu, Xiaoli Shao
Cinematographer: Yue Lü
Editor: Nancy Muqing, Ru Zhai
Sound: Jun Chao
Music: Jiping Zhao
Cast: Gong Li, Gao Xin, Shi Jingming, Guan Yue, Yue Xiuqing
Production: Guangdong Sanjiu Film
Distribution:
Pyramide Distribution
5 rue du chevalier de St George
75008 Paris
France
Tel: 0033 1.42.96.01.10
Fax: 0033 1.40.20.02.21
Mail: [email protected]
www.pyramidefilms.com
Year: 2000
35 mm, Colour, 90 min,
OV Mandarin with French Subtitles
Gong Li - Montreal Film Festival: Best Actress
From the moment she wakes up till late evening, whenever she walks or travels in the metro, Sun Liying relentlessly asks her son Zhang Da to repeat her words. Sun Liying got married and gave birth to an only child, as most of Chinese women. Because her son was deaf, her husband left her and asked for divorce. Sun Liying is convinced that with time, patience and energy she will manage to teach Zheng da how to speak clearly so that he may be admitted to a school and join the other children on the play ground. Sun Liying leaves her job which is too demanding in order to spend all her time with her son. She takes him everywhere along with her, while she delivers newspapers or does domestic cleaning work. Her only aim is to make her son become a boy like any other one. How can she alone face problems, support herself as well as her son, and bear people’s glance? Actress Gong Li plays the role of a courageous mother of a single-parent family who fights so that her disabled child may do well for himself.
