Directed by Xiaoling Zhu, “The paddy field” is a fiction feature film whose action takes place among the Dongs, an ethnic minority of southern China. This ecological fable is the first film shot entirely in Dong, a Tibeto-Burmese language, with non-professional actors.

The story told by A Qiu, a 12-year-old girl, follows the life of her family throughout the four seasons of work on the paddy fields. The death of the grandmother who raised her grandchildren requires parents to leave their jobs on construction sites in town and move back to the village. At that point, little A Qiu decides she will become a writer one day…

The director thus comments on the choice of this young girl : “She wants to become a writer because she loves tales, she loves to tell stories she invents. Maybe she feels the urgent need to bear witness to her culture and language, an unwritten language which may disappear”.

Presented in official competition at the Environmental International Film Festival

Monday November 29th, 8:30pm

Cinéma La Pagode

57 bis rue de Babylone

75007 – Paris