Breaking the Silence (Piao liang ma ma)

(China 1999, 35mm, 90 min.)

Director/Screenplay: Sun Zhou
Cast: Li Gong, Xin Gao, Jing-ming Shi, Yue Guan
Awards: Best Asian film, Hawaii International Film Festival 2000, Best Actress (Gong Li), Montreal World Film Festival 2000, Best Actress (Gong Li), Nanning International Film Festival 2000, Best Actress Runner-up (Gong Li), Seattle International Film Festival 2001

Breaking the Silence is an examination of the plight of women and the disabled in China. Sun Liying's husband has divorced her due to their son being born deaf. She leaves a good job to deliver newspapers in order to spend more time with her son. Chinese film star Gong Li shines in one of her finest performances as a single mother struggling to raise and educate her deaf son with no one else to turn to.

Director's Biography

Born in Shan Dong province, China in 1954, Sun Zhou worked as a cinematographer on documentaries and educational films at an agricultural studio before switching to television in 1980, where he worked as a cameraman and director. He studied at the Beijing film school and made his first feature in 1987. In 1990 he joined the Zhu Jiang Studio and the following year he co-founded an independent production company. As an actor he starred in Chen Kaige's The Emperor and the Assassin (1999) and he has lectured on cinema in Germany. His filmography includes Blizzard Coming Tonight, an acclaimed TV series in the '80s, and Heartfelt (1992), for which he won the Golden Rooster Award, China's "Academy" award.

Critic's Corner

"Her (Gong Li) face can convey more emotion and information than many entire scripts, and never before has she dominated a film from start to finish. From a poignant sequence in which she nervously bolts from a class reunion to a beautiful scene where she accidentally cuts her finger, then teaches her son the color of blood, Breaking the Silence is her tour de force."
--G. Allen Johnson, Indiewire

"...the best performance of her career..."
-Laura Kelly, South Florida Sun-Sentinel