Director Li Nan's work "Baptism" was screened in Busan, focusing on female themes and causing heated discussions

The 41st Busan International short Film Festival recently kicked off, with Baptism, a short film directed by young director Li Nan, invited to participate in the exhibition. The film was shown in two screenings on April 26th and 29th, which sparked a heated discussion among the audience. S é bastien Simon, a film selector and a professor in the Film Department of the International School of East Seoul University, praised the film as "extremely visual impact."

Prior to this, the film also won the award for best independent short film in Asia at the all-Asian Independent Film Festival in 2022.

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"Baptism" poster

"Baptism" tells the story of a mother who suffers from postpartum depression is sent to hospital for treatment, and then regained a new life and returned to a happy family.

The film blurs the boundary between reality and fantasy with exquisite structure and excellent audio-visual skills. With solemn black-and-white tone, cold art style and diverse musical elements, the film tells the heroine's amazing experience after being admitted to hospital for postpartum depression. She was treated as a crazy woman and subjected to all kinds of inhuman treatment-it was hard for the audience to tell, and after the movie was over, she was keen to discuss whether it was real or whether the heroine was hallucinating because of depression.

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"Baptism" poster

The director responded after the release that she designed a three-tier narrative structure in the creation of the script, so the foreshadowing and the final open ending of the film provided the audience with more space for interpretation. However, the director believes that, no matter fantasy or reality, the experience of the heroine is an aspect of the real society, and she hopes to discuss and reveal the norms and domestication of women in society through the film. The issue of "motherhood" and "motherhood" pressure discussed in the film is a common problem for women all over the world, so the director integrates a variety of elements in the film's architecture, art, props and music. I just hope that the content carried and conveyed by the story will be more universal.

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(the second from the left is director Li Nan)

Professor S é bastien Simon praised the highly abstract and alienated paragraphs in "Baptism" that "adult men are fed like babies, while women with postpartum depression are 'marked' and sent to hospital like livestock" is precisely a true reflection of the real situation and psychology of mothers who are stigmatized or even unfairly treated because of their psychological status.

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Director Li Nan at the Busan International short Film Festival

"Baptism" is the only short film focused on women in the A History of Violence unit of the Busan International short Film Festival, adding a lot of thinking to the audience about the common but invisible violence in the "second sex" world, while the director's previous feature film "A True Blood" also focuses on women, showing the "stigmatization" that women may easily suffer and the harm they cause in a more typed way. "A True View of Blood" won the Outstanding Director Award of the 9th Macau International Film Festival.

When talking about future creative plans, the director said that she would continue to tell more stories about women from a female perspective, and she would also consider combining the development of technology, applying AI technology, and constantly exploring the boundaries of the combination of technology and expression while making breakthroughs in the subject matter.