HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - Educational Media Reviews Online | SPECIAL JURY AWARD FOR DOCUMENTARY FEATURE - Lighthouse International Film Festival | GOLDEN KAPOL AWARD (BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE) - Guangzhou International Documentary Film Festival
Aging • Elderly Care • Dementia Care • Social Work • Mental Health • China
Date of Completion: 2015 | Run Time: 88 minutes | Language: Shanghai dialect with English subtitles | Captions: No | Includes: Transcript | Director: Zhao Qing | Producer: Violet Du Feng | Executive Producer: Jean Tsien
Former school principal 88-year-old Lou has had Alzheimer’s for the last 10 years. She now recognizes almost no one except for her husband Feng. Nonetheless, they live a full and happy life in Shanghai. They practice tai chi every morning, make regular visits to the Peking opera and read poetry to one another. But when Feng himself gets sick, he decides it’s time for them to move into a retirement home. They have almost no one else to care for them; their only son lives in Australia and visits sporadically. The transition from hectic city to rural rest home takes a heavy toll on them both. The subjects of filmmaker Qing Zhao’s tender portrait are her own great uncle and aunt, whom she followed for three years. She was witness to the unbreakable bond between the couple, and devotes much of her attention to the remarkable history of their love. Feng married Lou when she was 42 years old, following the death of his first wife. Together they survived the Cultural Revolution, during which Feng was denounced and sent far away to Sichuan. As an old Chinese saying goes, “Hold his hand to grow old together.” PLEASE REMEMBER ME perfectly encapsulates these words.
Educational Media Reviews Online | Reviewed by Bryan J. Sajecki, University at Buffalo
Highly Recommended "Please Remember Me is a very emotional film, as viewers can connect with the pain and sorrow related to not being able to fix a situation for someone they care for."
AWARDS
Golden Kapol Award (Best Documentary Feature) | Guangzhou International Documentary Film Festival
Special Jury Award for Documentary Feature | Lighthouse International Film Festival
Director and Producer of HIDDEN LETTERS, Producer of PLEASE REMEMBER ME
Violet Du Feng is an award-winning journalist and filmmaker whose films provide nuanced, intimate and provocative perspectives to reflect on larger social issues. Violet’s work focuses on women’s rights; the insider’s look into where China is through the 13 films she has directed, produced and executive produced covering topics about education, elderly care, artificial intelligence, ethnic minorities, commercialization and cultural shifts over the past 20 years; and how to use documentaries to create social impact especially in developing countries. Her work has been featured in publications including New York Times, New Yorker, the Wall Street Journal and Vogue Magazine. Her latest award-winning film HIDDEN LETTERS premiered at 2022 Tribeca Film Festival, which explores gender equality against politics, Capitalism and cultural influences through a fascinating lens of an ancient and secret women-only language from China. Following two millennial women, this poignant film addresses the global roll back on women’s rights in an unexpected and deeply moving way. She directed the CPB/PBS special program Harbor from the Holocaust with music performed by Yo-yo Ma, which tells the rarely known story of nearly 20,000 Jewish refugees who fled Nazi-occupied Europe during WII to Shanghai. Violet is the producer of the award-winning documentary PLEASE REMEMBER ME about elderly care in China. She led the first documentary impact campaign with the film and created groundbreaking policy changes. Violet started her career by co-producing the Peabody and Emmy winning documentary Nanking. The film examines the Nanking Massacre committed in 1937 by the Japanese, which premiered at 2007’s Sundance Film Festival and broadcasted on HBO’s Cinemax.
Violet has been invited to speak at prestigious academic institutions including Stanford, UC Berkeley, Columbia, NYU, Hongkong University and Fudan University. She often gives speeches about documentary social impact campaigns at major events including Good Pitch, impact producer’s assemblies and Chinese documentary forums. Violet is the 2022 advisor of Sundance Producers Lab, an annual trainer at the Chinese CNEX Documentary Forum and the consulting programmer at Shanghai International Film Festival.