A winner at Rotterdam, Huang Ji's brave and personal film Egg and Stone is one of the most auspicious debuts in recent Chinese cinema. With this film, Huang joins the rare circle of outstanding independent Chinese woman directors, including Liu Jiayin, Emily Tang, and Li Yu.

The film is set in rural Hunan province in the village in which Huang Ji grew up.

Based on incidents in her own life, Egg and Stone is a powerful portrait of 14-year-old Honggui's attempts to grapple with the abandonment of her children to rural relatives, a frequent phenomenon caused by China's rural-to-urban migration boom.

Her aunt considers her a burden; though her uncle seems solicitous. A local boy with whom she exchanges eggs for a sculpted stone seems to show interest, but Honggui is alone with her own inchoate fears and desires, grappling with a terrifying world of sexual awakening and danger.

Huang stands out from the current crop of new Chinese independent filmmakers with her technical polish and narrative assurance.

Date: Feb 15

Venue: CGIS South, Belfer Case Study Room (S020), 1730 Cambridge Street, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Website: fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/event

(China Daily 02/08/2013 page23)