FILM TRIBUTE TO A MUSIC HERO A movie about musician Xian Xinghai’s life has begun shooting in Kazakhstan. Xu Fan reports.
The first Sino-Kazakh coproduction, Composer, based on the life of musician Xian Xinghai, has begun filming in Astana, capital of Kazakhstan.
A ceremony to mark the event was held as President Xi Jinping is currently on a state visit to the country.
The biographical drama chronicles Xian’s final years (1940-45) in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, and Moscow.
Beijing-based studio Shinework Pictures, which mainly works on coproductions with countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative, has teamed up with Kazakhfilm JSC, the largest studio in Kazakhstan, to coproduce the movie.
The cast features A-lister Hu Jun as Xian and Kazakh star Berik Aitzhanov as Bakhitzhan Baykadamov, a famous Kazakh composer and one of Xian’s best friends.
The script was written by Su Xiaowei, and the movie will be directed by ethnic Uygur filmmaker Xierzati Yahefu from the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, who made the 2014 biographical movie Genuine Love.
Jonathan Shen, founder of Shinework Pictures, says the idea for the movie came from a speech Xi delivered at Nazarbayev University in Astana in September 2013.
In the speech, Xi spoke about Xian, and this led Shen to research the singer.
Shen, who also heads the weekly TV program World Film Report, then assigned reporters to study Xian, who’s known in China for his masterpiece, Yellow River Cantata.
Then, through interviews, including meetings with Baykadamov’s niece and Xian’s daughter, he learned more about the musician and his work.
In May 1940, Xian was sent by the Communist Party of China to the former Soviet Union to compose scores for the documentary, Yan’an and the Eighth Route Army.
But the start of the Soviet Union’s Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany in 1941 made it difficult for Xian to return to China. He was stranded in Almaty, suffering poverty and sickness.
Baykadamov then helped Xian, providing him with a home, despite not knowing his true identity since Xian was then using an alias.
Xian then developed a sort of father-daughter relationship with Baykadamov’s niece, then a primary school student, who taught him the local language.
Speaking about the movie, Shen says: “For them (the niece and Xian’s daughter, both of whom are around 80 years old now), Composer is not only a movie but also a chance for them to see the person they both deeply love on the silver screen.”
The movie, which will be shot in Almaty, Moscow and Yan’an in Northwest China’s Shaanxi province, is set to pre- miere on June 13, 2018, the birthday of Xian’s daughter.
Hu, the actor who plays Xian, says he accepted the role an hour after being invited to act in the film.
“It’s a big honor to play Xian. I was born in a family of musicians, and his Yellow River Cantata is one of my favorites,” says the 49-year-old Beijing native, who has impressed many with his tough-guy roles on screen.
Aitzhanov, known for playing Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev in the biographical hit The Way of the Leader, says Xian and Baykadamov were both noble men who devoted their lives to their countries.
Kairbekov Bakhyt, president of Kazakhfilm JSC, says he hopes the coproduction will inspire more cultural exchanges between the two countries.
Two avenues in Almaty were named after Xian and Baykadamov before Nazarbayev’s visit to China in 1998.
Xian is revered in Kazakhstan as some of his most influential works — Liberation of the Nation, Sacred War and Red All over the River — were created during his last years there.
Xian died in a Moscow hospital in 1945.
Contact the writer at xufan@chinadaily.com.cn