Closing Night

Narrative Feature

Julia Kwan

35 mm

92

Charming audiences and critics at film festivals around the world, this award-winning film details the experiences of a Chinese girl in Canada whose curious nature leads her on a remarkable exploration into the virtues of childhood.

Eve was born in the year of the fire horse, the year believed to yield the most troublesome children, causing their families great misfortune. Growing up in suburban Vancouver in the seventies with her saintly sister Karena, Eve is faced with making choices which conflict with her family’s ideals and traditions. Newcomer Phoebe Jojo Kut portrays Eve as a wide-eyed girl who uses her imagination to find answers to the questions that spring from the world around her. With the help of singing fish and dancing goddesses, she maneuvers toward understanding the events and moral ideals that shape her life.

Accompanied by brilliant cinematography and set design, writer/director Julia Kwan crafts an enchanting story that skillfully touches on issues from identity to faith, from mortality to cultural assimilation, as seen from the viewpoint of a nine year old girl.

Julia Kwan is a Vancouver based filmmaker and studied film and psychology at Ryerson Polytechnic University in Toronto.  Her short films have traveled extensively and have received many awards, including best film awards in Montreal, New Orleans and Houston, and audience awards in Toronto, Arkansas and Sao Paolo.  The script for EVE AND THE FIRE HORSE was awarded the Charles Israel Screenwriting Prize for Best Screenplay at the 2001 Writer’s Guild of Canada’s Top Ten Awards.  Most recently, Julia was chosen by Playback magazine as one of 2005’s Top 10 to Watch.

Official selection at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, Special Jury Prize

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