In recognition of World Mental Health Day, Cinevolution will present Richmond-based director Ying Wang’s multi award winning feature documentary The World is Bright on the big screen in Richmond for the first time.
The screening will be followed by a Director’s Q & A.
Event Details
Tuesday, October 22 | 5:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Richmond Cultural Centre – Performance Hall
7700 Minoru Gate, Richmond, BC (map)
Free Admission. Register online via eventbrite.
The World is Bright (2019)
Director: Ying Wang | Documentary | 116 minutes | English and Mandarin with subtitles
When Mr. Qianhui Deng and Ms. Xuemei Li receive notice that their only son Shi Ming has allegedly committed suicide and has been buried on Canadian soil, they travel to Vancouver to investigate the mysterious circumstances of his death. Over ten years, director Ying Wang documents Shi Ming’s parents as they enter a long and arduous legal battle to understand how their son – a young Canadian immigrant – could have died.
Twelve years in the making, with exclusive access to the main characters, The World is Bright is an intimate and humanizing portrait of a young man’s tragedy, his parents’ experience of it, as well as the social and historical circumstances that framed this family story. Set within the larger context of global migration and the growing anti-immigration sentiment around the world, the film also acts as an urgent call for solutions: How do we build a society that can be a real home, both physically and spiritually fulfilling, for our future generations?
Awards and Accolades
The World is Bright won the Sea to Sky Award at Vancouver International Film Festival in 2019, Emerging Canadian Filmmaker Award at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in 2020 and was nominated for the Best Feature Length Documentary and Best Editing at the Canadian Screen Awards in 2021.
“Very powerful film….It has helped me as an immigrant and a mental health counsellor to understand better the complex layers that immigrants have to face.”
“it really impacted me beyond what I can verbalize … (it) is not my story, but the narrative was unbearably familiar….”
“This is an immigrant story, but it applies to all of us. We all get beaten down by the seemingly pointless fight we have to have with the legal structure and bureaucracy, the complication of modern life. … what it shows for all of us is how we need this touch stones, we need community, we need the people who are willing to stick with us even when our case is hopeless.”
For more information about the film, visit www.theworldisbright.ca.
About the Director, Wang Ying 王瓔
Wang Ying 王瓔 is an award-winning filmmaker. She received the Sea to Sky Award at the 38th Vancouver International Film Festival in 2019 and Emerging Canadian Filmmaker Award at Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival in 2020 for her feature length documentary “The World is Bright.” Her credits as a filmmaker also include writing and directing “Sisters,”
a 87-minute docudrama that exposed for the very first time the life of Chinese women who suffer from eating disorders.
Ying was also the Executive Producer of “Tricks on the Dead: The Story of Chinese Labour Corps in WWI,” a Canada-China-France co-production that won two 2016 Canadian Screen Awards (Best Cinematography, Best Production Design), the 2015 Vancouver International Film Festival Audience Must See Award, and the 2015 Guangzhou International Documentary Film Festival Best International Production award.
Acknowledgements
This event is presented in recognition of World Mental Health Day, in partnership with the City of Richmond, with support from Story Money Impact.