HUGE, HUGE congrats for Louis Hothothot (DAI, 2014). The highly anticipated opening film of IDFA Opening Night is Louis Hothothot's FOUR JOURNEYS !! During the 34th edition of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam there will be ample attention for Louis intensely personal film about the destructive influence on a Chinese family of the one-child policy - a topic Louis Liu ( = the name under which he arrived at DAI in 2012) was already working on when he was still studying with us. Today we are deeply impressed by his focus and dedicated hard work and continued study which has brought him nominations for the IDFA Award for Best First Feature and the IDFA Award for Best Dutch Film.
Filmmaker Louis Hothothot (Louis Yi Liu) was born in China in 1986, as an “illegal” second child. The authorities punished his parents with a fine equal to three times the annual salary of his father, whose career was also torpedoed.
The devastating consequences of his birth left Louis with a festering sense of guilt, and in his 20s he left for Amsterdam. Now, five years after last seeing his parents and sister, he visits them to unravel the family history.
Wielding his camera with sometimes intimidating effect, Louis forces them to confront their traumatic past, one that hides yet another ordeal. He probes them with sharp questions and remarks to drag them out of a distressing past. It’s painful, but necessary, because “if memories are frozen in the past, what can dissolve the pain?”