THE GLEANERS

An ordinary, rural family in Zhaixia Village, Heping County, Guangdong Province.

 

After my family abandoned farming the hillside fields, we only had half an acre of land left. Someone wanted to buy this field to build a house, but my mother refused. She still wants to farm.

 

My father, a very quiet man, is a bricklayer. During the slack season, he earns a living by building houses for others. After my graduation from college, I did not want to get a job in the city like other people do; instead, I went back to my village to interview old people about the “Three Years of Famine” of 1959-1961. My parents were very worried about me not working and not getting married. 

 

One day, my father fell from the second floor of a house he was building. He injured his arm and waist badly. We had to borrow money to pay for his operation. After my father was discharged, he couldn’t work like he had before. I felt too guilty to face my parents, so I decided to leave the village again. In order to pay the hospital debts, my parents sold their last field. To earn a living and support the family, my mother decided to look for a job.

YE ZUYI 

 

Born in Guangdong in October 1985. I graduated from School of Public Administration of South China Normal University in 2008. After graduation, I drifted in Beijing for a couple of years. Since September 2010, I have been interested in DV. In 2011, inspired by Wenguang WU of Caochangdi Workstation, I went back to my village to interview old people about the history of three-year famine that happened between 1959 to 1961. In 2012, I initiated the non-profit project "Photo Exhibition of the Elderly in the Countryside". Since then, I have been volunteering for public services and producing my own films.

• Visions du Reel, Switzerland 2014

The Gleaners is my first film. It doesn't have fascinating scenarios and a crisp tempo, instead, it is all about the ordinary life of my parents and I. This film consists of 26 fixed lens and it tells my family's life in the recent three years. Some friends think this film is documentary, for all the stories in it are true; other friends think it is a feature film, because I used the techniques of "recreating" and "reenacting" in many scenes and there are performing elements in my film. But for me, I don't want to define the specific category of my film, I only know the stories in it are what I want to film.

Main Competition 2015