Director Chen Fei receives the Golden Griffin film Encounter Love
by Elisabetta Colangelo – Chinese director Chen Fei receives the Golden Griffin Best Screenplay “San Francesco” for the film Encounter Love. The film will be presented on June 28th at 11am at the Méliès cinema (in the original language with English subtitles).
How many films has he directed and what does he tell in them? Encounter Love?
I am very grateful for the welcome I received at the Love Film Festival in Perugia. This is my seventh film, and it’s the fourth time I’ve tackled a love story. As long as there is love in the world, there is no contradiction or conflict that cannot be resolved. I trust in my film to encourage union between Perugia and Hanzhong, the city where it is set, and also with the Han Chinese. The people there, like the people of Perugia, love life and are romantic and passionate.
How did you find Perugia?
I’m happy to have discovered it through cinema, with this Festival it has become a capital of love. I find the city similar to the one in my film: Perugia is famous for its chocolate, while Hanzhong for its hot rice noodles and for being the romantic city par excellence in China, as well as the cradle of the Han River.
How many times have you been to Italy? What are your impressions?
I arrive in Italy for the first time, but the country is familiar to me thanks to the cinema and actresses like the beautiful Monica Bellucci or my favorite directors, Giuseppe Tornatore and Bernardo Bertolucci.
When we talk about Italy, we immediately think of opera. In my hometown, there is a work called Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai which has been performed for a long time, the singing style has many similarities with Italian opera. And there is one more curiosity that I want to tell you: in 1911, an Italian missionary named Anselmo and the master Hua Guowen combined Italian Western winemaking techniques with oriental charm, and thanks to them the first red wine in China was produced in the city.
Encounter Love (2023) by Chinese director Chen Fei.
Synopsis: Due to some work misadventures, Wei Li takes refuge in a village in the mountains and by chance meets Yue Zhou, married without her parents’ consent, pregnant and divorced from her husband. Wei Li offers to help her, starting a series of dramatic misunderstandings with the girl’s family, but a great love will be born between the two.
