TAMING THE HORSE

XUN MA

By Tao GU

GREENGROUND PRODUCTIONS - as PROD

Documentary - Completed 2017

A Wild spirit, destined to be tamed.

Festivals
& Awards

festival des trios continents 2017
Montgolfière D'or
visions du reel 2017
Competition
RIDM 2017
Best Canadian Feature
dok leipzig 2017
Beijing IFF 2018
Jury Prize
FIRST Xining International Film Festival 2018
Best Creative Originality
    • Year of production
    • 2017
    • Genres
    • Documentary, True Story
    • Countries
    • CANADA, CHINA
    • Languages
    • MANDARIN
    • Budget
    • 0 - 0.3 M$
    • Duration
    • 120 mn
    • Director(s)
    • Tao GU
    • Producer(s)
    • Aonan YANG (GREENGROUND PRODUCTIONS), Xun YU, Tao GU
    • Synopsis
    • Growing up on the wind-blown plains of Inner Mongolia, Dong developed an unbridled spirit and a belief in the virtues of simple living. When his family, like millions of others during China’s economic reform, migrated south seeking opportunity, Dong’s spirited ideals were at odds with the values of a rapidly modernizing society in the early throws of consumerist frenzy. More than a decade later, Dong is a dreamer who has lost his way, a loser in derision, spiritually alienated and socially troubled—a listless young adult battling bouts of depression and substance abuse without a sense of place or purpose in his own society.

      When an old friend and filmmaker returns to the city with a video camera in hand on the eve of Dong’s 30th birthday, something in him stirs and he begins pouring out his most intimate thoughts. Over the course of a year, filmmaker Tao Gu accompanies Dong in his struggles with family and society, sex and love, identity and survival as a young man in modern China. The resulting portrait is that of a difficult and divisive young man; a sympathetic record on the human condition in contemporary China; a raw cry for truth, a longing for a better life.