The director-producer duo Michelle Zhou and Chun Yu collectively incubated “Big Little Things,” a lesbian coming-out story inspired by a real-life family rift during a New Year holiday amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Harbin, a snowy city in northern China.
\n\nZhou notes that the film was selected for the Venice Days first but was later invited by the Horizons. “We had to turn down the Venice Days even though we really love [ANAC and 100autori, the groups behind the section],” says Zhou. “It was a happy dilemma.”
\n\nThe film’s story stemmed from Zhou and Yu’s real-life family conflict, tracing back to four and a half years ago when they started dating.
\n\n“During that time, [Yu] really wanted to share our happiness with her parents, and at the same time, she was terrified of losing them,” Zhou says. Since same-sex relationships have long been a social taboo in China, Yu told her family that Zhou was her friend and colleague.
\n\nNevertheless, Yu’s parents deduced that Zhou was actually Yu’s romantic partner, and the family collapsed overnight.
\n\n“I was in deep family chaos. It was totally dark, I couldn’t do anything,” Yu tells Variety. “It was a difficult time not just for…
Original source: https://variety.com/