Beijing-based Bad Rabbit Pictures was established in 2017 by actress Yao Chen and cinematographer Cao Yu as a production company to develop, finance and produce projects, while positioning creative freedom and artistic values as priorities.
It has released three films to date, starting with cinematographer-turned-director Lu Yue’s Lost, Found (2018), a drama about two mothers from different social classes, which earned Yao a series of best actress awards in China for her portrayal of a single mother and lawyer who embarks on a frantic search for her missing toddler.
The film was released by Huayi Brothers in China where it grossed $41m (rmb285m), an astounding box-office success for a woman-centric social drama.
Bad Rabbit continued this strong momentum with young director Teng Congcong’s Send Me To The Clouds (2019), on which Yao served as an executive producer for the first time. Yao led the cast as a strong-willed journalist who seeks fast money and sexual fulfilment when diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
The film won best first feature at Shanghai Film Critics Awards 2020, among other accolades. It was released in North America through Cheng Cheng Films, while Hong Kong-based Edko Films handled international sales.
Despite the pandemic, Bad Rabbit delivered its third production, debut feature director Qiao Sixue’s The Cord Of Life, which premiered in Tokyo International Film Festival’s Asian Future competition in 2022. Set in Inner Mongolia, the heart-warming family drama revolves around a musician who takes his Alzheimer’s-afflicted mother to look for her childhood home. To stop her from getting lost, he ties her to him with a rope, which becomes like an umbilical cord that reconnects them.
Yao and Cao are executive producers on the film, while fellow Bad Rabbit co-founder and CEO of the company Liu Hui is a producer. The film has been selected for China’s New Talents Going Global programme, which is organised by China Film Foundation’s Wu Tianming Film Fund for Young Talents to showcase young Chinese filmmakers in Cannes. The event will run from May 16 to 27 at the China Pavilion.
Bad Rabbit at Cannes
Director Qiao, who graduated from 3iS, International Institute of Image and Sound, in France, will travel to Cannes for the event, along with Yao, Cao and Liu. A market screening was held on May 19 through international sales agent Parallax Films.
“We are quite indulgent when picking up projects,” says Cao, who has earned multiple domestic and international cinematography awards, including at San Sebastian 2009, Taiwan’s Golden Horse Award 2009, and China’s Golden Rooster Awards 2019.
“Our considerations are not always purely about box-office potential or commercial returns. This approach is very different from the big-budget productions that I worked on as a director of photography.” Cao’s DoP credits include Guan Hu’s ambitious war epic The Eight Hundred (2020).
“We are more intuitive, based on our feelings for the projects,” says Yao. “The essence of our projects is about people and their predicaments. We won’t go for stereotyped characters or melodramatic events. We care more about what is real, which is more powerful. Stories that are real can connect more on an emotional level and they are worth telling.”
Yao is an influential actress with many notable works to her name, including features Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back and Caught In The Web, and popular TV series Lurk. She served as a goodwill ambassador for UN refugee agency UNHCR in China from 2013-19 and won the Crystal Award at the World Economic Forum in 2016 for her leadership in raising awareness of the refugee crisis. Yao also received the Golden Mulberry Award for outstanding achievement at Udine’s Far East Film Festival in Italy.
A trio of upcoming projects are on Bad Rabbit’s slate: Village-Music directed by Wang Lina, whose debut feature A First Farewell was named best film at the Berlinale’s Generation Kplus in 2019; and Flaming Cloud, the feature debut of director Liu Siyi, executive produced by renowned director Li Shaohong and Yao. Both are in post-production.
Principal photography recently began on The Wind Is Unstoppable by director Huo Meng, who won the best director Feimu Award at Pingyao International Film Festival 2018 for Crossing The Border-Zhaoguan.
Contact info@badrabbit.film
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