Pebble
Qiao Jianqiang • 2019
This documentary is about a young man who wanders in Beijing. He suffered from a rare disease that left him with general weakness and difficulty walking, a disease that is not only untreatable but runs in his family. He joined a Christian church in the hope that prayer would alleviate his condition, but salvation is slow to come. When the wandering life becomes too hard, he decided to return home, and his wandering friends told him: A thousand days at home is good, but everything is hard when you go out!
AWARDS & FESTIVALS
2019 FIRST International Film Festival, China2019 Busan International Film Festival, South Korea
CAST & CREW
DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
Qiao Jianqiang
Director
I think the biggest deciding factor in making a film is fate, and my encounter with Xiao Shitou is fate. In 2019, citizens and working people fill the streets of Beijing. Everyone’s eyes are dull and in a trance. A vagrant falls to the ground, stands up, falls again… tossing and turning, panting. He cursed and cursed at the intangible fate and God, as the crowd watched. His thin, sickly body twitched and looked up at the sky hideously, as if to say, “Come on, what else can you do to me?” I have never felt such a shock. I feel the unprecedented powerful life force. I think each of us, carrying life until it dissipates, does not truly understand its weight and its meaning, and how many of us have touched its boundaries?