WE ARE LIVING THINGS SYNOPSIS
Mysterious Solomon is an undocumented Mexican immigrant living in the back lot of a recycling plant in Brooklyn. By chance, he meets Chuyao. Shunned by her father for believing that she was abducted by a UFO, she has fled China. Alone in the city, she is involved with a pimp who puts her life in danger. Solomon takes drastic action to save Chuyao, setting the stage for the two fugitives to run from the law and head to Arizona. Once in the desert, Solomon must confront his past demons. Chuyao gives him renewed hope for the future and together they search for answers in the skies.
ARTISTIC STATEMENT
WE ARE LIVING THINGS is the story of underdogs and outcasts, a theme that has added urgency in today’s political climate. The drama is set in the United States with two undocumented immigrants as its main characters. Solomon and Chuyao meet accidentally. As events unfold, the characters begin to sense that they ‘know each other from somewhere else’. They both have had powerful experiences that seem to indicate hidden dimensions behind reality, but they don’t know what to make of these experiences or how to share them.
Solomon and Chuyao have had to overcome hardships for most of their lives. In order to survive and see light at the end of the tunnel, they are both believers. But what they believe in is not institutionalized religion, it’s in the existence of an external, outer space life form that could save them.
Solomon grew up in the streets of Mexico City. His mother Magdalena was a street kid herself. When she became pregnant, she knew she could never take care of a baby. After she gave birth, she left him behind and headed north for the border. As a teenager, Solomon went searching for her. In an Arizona border town, he met Constance, who told him that she knew his mother, and that Magdalena had been abducted by aliens.
Chuyao, after experiencing an overwhelmingly beautiful yet terrifying episode as a teenager, thinks she too was abducted and returned by aliens. Her father, fearing for her mental stability, tried to convince her that she had imagined the entire experience. This led to their estrangement and triggered Chuyao's decision to leave China.
In the first part of the story, Chuyao is involved with an abusive pimp who puts her life in danger. Fearing that Chuyao’s safety is at risk, Solomon follows his instincts and decides to free her. He does so by taking drastic measures, without her consent, that make them both fugitives from the law. Together, they head for Arizona to confront Solomon's past.
Without understanding why, Chuyao finds herself drawn to exploitative situations that replay her UFO abduction trauma – such as getting a chip implant from her pimp boyfriend, and being “abducted” by rich clients, drugged, and forced to submit to a risky fetish game that closely resemble the typical UFO abductee’s experience of being strapped to a table and experimented on. Trauma victims often subconsciously find themselves reliving the trauma in different ways, falling into those same patterns over and over as they try to come to terms with the initial trauma. Chuyao finds herself caught in this kind of nightmarish feedback loop. She is likely not aware what is driving her towards these sordid and dangerous situations, but the pull of the unresolved trauma from her past is almost inescapable.
Once she and Solomon hit the road and head for the Arizona desert, the dynamic of their relationship shifts. Increasingly, we see that he is the one who is dangerously trapped by demons from his past, while she is the one who uses her strength and courage to help set him free. Surrounded by the magnetic rock formations and the vastness of the desert, Chuyao finds renewed energy. She guides and protects Solomon, and gives them both hope for the future as they await salvation from the skies.
Our story is an ‘out of time’ ironic fable with a science-fiction element that acts as a metaphor, yet we hope our film also captures something very immediate about the world we are living in right now, the “funhouse mirror” reality we have come to know. It also touches on the current national and global controversies over migration, protectionism, and border patrols.
Antonio Tibaldi
CAST
JORGE ANTONIO GUERRERO is Solomon
Jorge Antonio Guerrero is the lead actor in Alfonso Cuaron’s "Roma", the winner of the best foreign language film at the 2018 Academy Awards. Jorge gained widespread attention for that performance, helping him to secure roles in the Netflix TV series "Narcos" and "Crime Diaries: The Candidate". "We Are Living Things" is his first American film.
XINGCHEN LYU is Chuyao
In 2011, Xingchen Lyu won the Best Actress award at the Shanghai International Film Festival with "Folk Songs Singing", the youngest actress to ever win. Recent credits include "Lost Times" directed by Zhang Ming, "Life of Zhang Chu" directed by Lyu Yulai, and "Wisdom Tooth" directed by Liang Ming.
O-LAN JONES is Constance
O-Lan Jones is an award winning actress, composer, sound designer and writer who has been consistently involved in experimental theater, music, and opera since the age of 16. The press has referred to her as an "uncategorizable legend." She is the Artistic Director for Overtone Industries, currently composing a new music theater/opera hybrid called Iceland, scheduled to present its first phase in July of 2014. Her acting works include “The Right Stuff” directed by Philip Kaufman, “Edward Scissorhands“ and “Mars Attacks!“directed by Tim Burton.
CREATIVE TEAM
ANTONIO TIBALDI Writer/Director/Producer
Antonio Tibaldi is a NYC-based, Australian-born, Italian filmmaker. His fiction and non-fiction feature films have won numerous awards and screened at festivals such as Sundance, San Sebastian, Rotterdam, IDFA and Tribeca. His credits include “On My Own” starring Judy Davis, “Little Boy Blue” starring Nastassja Kinski, John Savage, Ryan Phillippe and Shirley Knight and “Claudine’s Return” starring Christina Applegate and Stefano Dionisi. His films have been released by Miramax, Warner Bros., and Lion’s Gate. He has worked for United Nations Television for over 15 years, directing nonfiction films that shed light on underreported stories around the globe. As a Fulbright Scholar, he received an MFA in Film at CalArts.
ALEX LORA Writer/Editor/Producer
Winner of a New York Emmy, finalist for a Student Academy Award, and winner of a Gaudi Catalan Academy Award, ALEX LORA is a Spanish filmmaker based in New York City. In 2014, Variety's Cannes Edition listed him as one of the top 10 promising Spanish directors.
FAN HE Producer
Fan He is a Chinese film producer based in Los Angeles. In 2013, he founded U. S. based EnMaze Pictures. Fan has produced/co-produced dozens of China-U.S. co-production projects, including Wanda Pictures’ "Mojin-The Lost Legend", Ivanhoe Pictures’ "My Other Home" and the hit TV series "Wonderful Life".
ANDREW K. LI Producer
Andrew K. Li is a filmmaker and producer based in the U.S. His producing work has been screened and awarded in film festivals around the world, including Festival de Cannes, TIFF, SXSW, LA Film Festival, Nantucket, Denver, and New Directors/New Films. He graduated with an MFA in Film from Columbia University. Li is currently developing feature film and scripted television projects in the U.S. and Asia.
ANDREW FIERBERG Executive Producer
Andrew Fierberg has produced over 40 independent films. He recently completed Laurie Simmon’s feature debut MY ART which he produced with Lena Dunham. He is the Executive Producer of STARZ’s THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE, written and directed by Lodge Kerrigan, produced by Steven Soderbergh.
SOPHIA MENG PAN Executive Producer
Sophia Meng Pan is a bilingual screenwriter based in LA. Writing for both Chinese and US productions, her previous works include feature film FAMILY PLAN, STRIDE and original TV series IT NEVER SNOWS IN LOS ANGELES. Sophia is also the Chief Creative Officer of EnMaze Pictures.
LUCA BIGAZZI Director of Photography
Luca Bigazzi has lensed some of the most important Italian films of the last three decades. He has worked with directors such as Gianni Amelio, Mario Martone, Carlo Mazzacurati, Abbas Kiarostami. He shot Paolo Sorrentino’s "The Great Beauty", winner of an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language in 2014. He has won a record 7 Davide Donatello for Best Cinematography, Italy’s Academy Award equivalent.
KATE RANCE Production Designer
Originally from the UK, Kate Rance is an award-winning production designer based in New York City. Her films have screened at the Berlinale "The Chair" and have won awards at festivals such as SXSW and the LA Film Festival.
VERA CHOW Costume Designer
Vera is an established costume designer in the film & television industry. You can usually find her hovering on set by craft services (especially when there is cheese), underneath a pile of smelly clothes in a costume shop, or tearing through stores and showrooms like the apocalypse is nigh.
Her works in the fields of film and television are quite rich, including Boogie, SKyfire, The Walking Dead 2021 and The American West.
HEIDI LEVITT Casting Director
Los Angeles-based Heidi Levitt has cast many award-winning films, from the Academy Award-winning "The Artist", to films by Oliver Stone, Wayne Wang, Sally Potter, Wim Wenders, Diego Luna, Kim Nguyen, and Victor Nunez.