A young Chinese director's movie, Chen Tao's Way Out, won a short film award on May 25 at the 60th Cannes Film Festival in France.

The work of Chen Tao, a 28-year-old student from the Beijing Film Academy, was awarded the second prize in the short film unit. The film tells the tale of a farmer who becomes a pickpocket under the pressure of his family. All of the actors and actresses in the film are non-professional.

"I'm so happy," said the young director. "I feel like a kid entering into the big world of films."

The film's strong narration helped it outshine other candidates, according to Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke (pictured right), who presided over the short film jury.

"We were very stimulated by the films we saw, coming from different countries and different styles. They aroused my passion for film and made me want to go back to film school," Jia said.

Jia also said that Chen shares similarities with him and both of them graduated from Beijing Film Academy. Coincidentally, Chen's Way Out has the same story as Jia's earlier film Xiao Wu (1997), which also tells a realistic story of pocket thief.

The First Prize was awarded to Ahora Todos Parecen Contentos for Now Everybody Seems to Be Happy by Argentinean Gonzalo Tobal, and the Third Prize was given to A Reunion by South Korean director Hong Sung-hoon and Minus from Serbian director Fakultet Dramskih Umetnosti.

The short film unit is in charge of promoting the next generation of filmmakers. This year, 16 student films were selected from a large number of entries, varying in length from 8 to 45 minutes.

Meanwhile, there is also good news for director Jia, who, together with his regular actress Zhao Tao, celebrated high box office takings for his Still Life at Cannes last week.

The film, which took home the Gold Lion award at last year's Venice Film Festival, has been screening in local French cinemas for three weeks, grabbing ninth place on the box office takings list in its first week. Over 135,000 people have watched the film in France alone. Back in 2002, Hong Kong director Wong Kai-war's movie, In the Mood for Love, was also popular in France, drawing 170,000 people to the cinema.

(China Daily 05/30/2007 page6)