I have a dream
Director: Tony He. China. Production Budget: under 3,000 USD
No-Budget Short Film (budget under $3k USD)
Inside and outside his summer dream, a Chinese boy explores the real world on his own for the first time, as he is to buy a bag of soy sauce to prove that he’s a grown-up.
Director Biography
Tony He is an international director and producer currently based in Beijing. Having studied and worked in Vancouver and New York, Tony is aware of the power of films across boundaries.
As a storyteller, Tony is interested in exploring the contradicting ideas of significance and insignificance in human life. Tony also believes that the strength of films not only comes from a touching story but also from a story told from a unique perspective. What really gets the audience is not the story itself, but the idea, the emotion, the value behind it, which we can share regardless of cultures and time.
Director Statement
I have a dream, it is a topic we all write about when we are in primary school. Young dreams are as beautiful and easy to lose as summer holiday. In China, during the old days, we used to mark a child’s grown-up with his first accomplishing buying soy sauce on his own. And in 2008, in a street interview, a passer-by refused to give his opinion on a hot social issue by saying that he was just on his way to buy soy sauce. This video was such a hit and his words soon became a popular phrase of hiding oneself by not expressing his opinions.
In my story, we experience this symbolic trip of buying soy sauce as a primary school student. We witness the difference between an ideal world in a boy’s imagination and the real world. We Chinese have sacrificed so many romantic and beautiful things in exchange of developing our economy and the strength of the country. Now it’s time to pay attention to the young generation and the cultural environment they live in.
I hope we as adults can create a warm and safe society together. I hope our children don’t come to the world only to buy soy sauce and do nothing. I hope our children’s dreams become not only dreams.
