japanese
New Asian Currents
  • A Trip to the Barbershop
  • The Woman, the Orphan, and the Tiger
  • Water Hands
  • Unreal Forest
  • we began by measuring distance
  • All Restrictions End
  • Amin
  • Bassidji
  • Iranian Cookbook
  • My Own City
  • A Brief History of Memory
  • World without Shadow
  • On the Way to the Sea
  • Hard Rails across a Gentle River
  • Thatched Cottages on the Enclave
  • The Red Rain on the Equator
  • Prison and Paradise
  • Self-Portrait with Three Women
  • Yuguo and His Mother
  • Yongsan
  • We’ve never seen a night which has finished by reaching a day
  • Gift
  • The Shepherd’s Story / Shinjuku 2009 + Ogaki 2010
  • Children of Soleil
    • New Asian Currents Special Invitation Film
  • Aoluguya, Aoluguya . . .
    • Jurors
  • Zeze Takahisa
  • Mickey Chen
    		•
    [CHINA]

    Yuguo and His Mother

    - CHINA / 2011 / Chinese / Color / Blu-ray (SD) / 49 min

    Director: Gu Tao
    Photography: Gu Tao, Zhao Jiewei, Hong Lei, Wei Hanfu
    Editor: Zhou Yu, Li Bo
    Executive Producer: Zhang Weijie
    Producer: Han Lei
    Source: Gu Tao

    Yuguo has just come back home to the forest from his days of living far away from his family. In the snowy Aoluguya Forest of northeast Inner Mongolia, his mother expresses her love with all her body and soul. The son accepts this innocent mother and takes care of her. He becomes bewildered in the forest, but the camera gently watches over their short but radiant time spent together. The film can be considered the sequel to the director’s Aoluguya, Aoluguya . . . .


    - [Director’s Statement] In 2005, I started shooting the documentary film Aoluguya, Aoluguya . . . Over the years, I had developed close feelings with the reindeer herders, but I also felt sad. I always wanted to be of use, to do something of practical help to them. Because Liuxia was widowed by two husbands, Yuguo, the only son, was sent by a local organization of the government’s All-China Women’s Federation to a southern city to study at a boarding school. Unable to see her son, Liuxia sorrowfully got drunk everyday to numb her pain. I thought the only way I could help this disheartened mother was to help her see her son. At first, I had no thought that I would go on to film the younger generation of the Ewenki people. As Yuguo came closer and closer to the north, and to the forest of Aoluguya, it was as if the memory in his blood was slowly awakening. Then, I simply picked up my camera by instinct . . .


    - Gu Tao

    Born in 1970 in Inner Mongolia. Studied painting at the Inner Mongolia College of Art before entering the photography department of the China Academy of Art in Beijing. In 2005, he began working on documentary films, starting with Aoluguya, Aoluguya . . . , which was completed in 2008. Since then he has made several documentaries.


    New Asian Currents Special Invitation Film [CHINA]

    Aoluguya, Aoluguya . . .

    - CHINA / 2007 / Chinese / Color / DVCAM / 81 min

    Director, Photography: Gu Tao
    Editing: Zhou Yu, Huang Mei, Ding Ruoshui
    Source: Gu Tao

    A work preceding Yuguo and His Mother. A family of Ewenki people that lives in Aoluguya in the deep forest of Daxinganling area in Inner Mongolia. Their traditional way of living based on hunting has been banned, and they are forced to settle down in the foot of the mountain. Despite the hardship, they go to their camp in the forest and spend most of their time there grazing reindeer. A tale that unfolds in the Aoluguya forest, featuring such unique characters as a mother who dulls her sadness over the absence of her son, Yuguo, with alcohol; her younger brother; and Maria, the tribal chieftain who watches over them. It was first shown in the Chinese Independent Film Festival in Tokyo in 2009.