Yuting Cai’s film Rain, Tear and Sweat selected for international film festival

A film by Postgraduate Researcher Yuting Cai, exploring the relationship between Chineseness and Chinese identity, has been chosen for screening at UK based independent film festival Odyssey 2023.

Odyssey is an international film festival focused on Chinese cinema in the UK, running from 26 May to 30 June.

Odyssey 2023 includes films, masterclasses, discussion panels and exclusive Q&A sessions. It is the biggest annual hybrid film festival in the UK, bridging audiences with Greater China and overseas Chinese communities. This year, 27 of the 60 films on show were selected from a pool of approximately 500 applications to an open submission call.

In its third edition, this year’s festival theme is ‘global sustainability’. Responding to the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the festival programme has five main strands comprising both online & offline screenings. These include ‘journey’, ‘equality’, ‘biodiversity’, ‘environment’ and ‘urban development’.

Film still from Yuting Cai's film Blood Tear and Sweat

Film still from Rain, Tear and Sweat (2022). Screenwriter and Director: Bei Yu (Yuting Cai). Editor: Alejando Subia. Image courtesy of Yuting Cai.

Yuting Cai is a practice-led Postgraduate Researcher based within the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cutural Studies at the University of Leeds.

Yuting’s film – Rain, Tear and Sweat (2022) – is a 15 minute animation which addresses the ‘urban development’ festival strand. In his film, Yuting adopts an autoethnographic approach combined with montage methods to delve critically into the multifaceted construct of Chineseness, which is central to his practice-led PhD project.

The film investigates the complexities and ambiguities of Chineseness, dissecting the influences of historical events and socio-cultural processes. Simultaneously, it sparks compelling conversations around Chineseness and transgenerational trauma, illuminating the intertwined dimensions of these intricate topics.

The film is being screened online during the film festival and will be available to view until 30 June.

Drawing of Shanghai's commercial centre. Film still from Yuting Cai's Rain, Tear and Sweat, 2022.

Shanghai’s commercial centre. Film still from Rain, Tear and Sweat (2022). Screenwriter and Director: Bei Yu (Yuting Cai). Editor: Alejando Subia. Image courtesy of Yuting Cai.

Yuting Cai, who works under the artist name Bei Yu, is the screenwriter and director for the film. Yuting said:

“In recent years, the Shanghai municipal government has proposed to build ‘five new cities’ with the goal of providing high-quality medical conditions and educational resources to new immigrants.

“As these cities develop, they will also feature abundant supporting facilities, including urban sub-centers that will create a complex urban structure with different emotional responses from the residents.

“The first half of the film’s narrative follows the protagonist's experience hailing a taxi from the suburbs to downtown Shanghai. During the journey, the viaducts connecting the ‘old’ and ‘new’ parts of the city become a focal point, symbolizing the link between the past and future. By providing more context about the protagonist's experience and observations, the narrative immerses the reader in the scene and helps to create a stronger connection between the reader and the story.

Film still of road overpass in Shanghai. Film still from Rain, Tear and Sweat 2022

Overpass in Shanghai. Film still from Rain, Tear and Sweat (2022). Screenwriter and Director: Bei Yu (Yuting Cai). Editor: Alejando Subia. Image courtesy of Yuting Cai.

“In the second half of the narrative, the story shifts to explore urban legends and rumors in Shanghai. The Denis Apartments, built in 1930, had four standing statues that were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution in 1966. The protagonist encounters a butterfly, which is a city ghost that takes them into a room to imagine and invent stories about ‘her’. Through the protagonist's relationship with the butterfly, the narrative aims to draw a parallel between transgenerational traumas in historical events and urban legends and rumors in contemporary China.

“To provide a stronger connection between the two halves of the narrative, the viaducts can serve as a symbolic link between the protagonist's journey and the exploration of urban legends and rumors. The viaducts represent the physical link between different parts of the city, while the exploration of urban legends and rumours represents the link between the past and present.”