XIAN-String

Best Drama
Synopsis
Years after losing his mother in an earthquake in Xihan City, music-loving teenager Xiaojun seeks solace in his musical dreams, nurtured by his late mother’s artistic influence. His father, Lao Lu, drowns his grief in alcohol and neglect, barely supporting them through odd jobs. When Xiaojun discovers his mother’s forgotten belongings—old clothes and a set of strings—he endures a scolding from Lao Lu after a fall while retrieving them. Undeterred, he builds a wooden guitar using the strings. A blind boy from Xiaojun’s sports school, who shares a similar tragedy (orphaned by the same earthquake and raised by a music teacher who supports his dreams), quietly reaches out.
Director Biography – Mubai Shen
Shen Mubai is an award-winning Chinese director and screenwriter renowned for his work in commercial suspense films and urban inspirational dramas. He is the founder of Mubai Films based in Shenzhen. His breakthrough came with ‘Dreaming Golden City’, a modern entrepreneurial thriller set against Shenzhen’s economic reforms, which earned him the Golden Lotus New Director Award at the 12th Macau International Film Festival in 2020.