Deng Wenwen, Anna Zhao

    anna.whizh@yahoo.com

    A film produced by alumni from Shenzhen Foreign Languages School (SFLS) on campus life in senior high school drew extensive praise from its audience of parents, teachers and students. The film, “Sail, the Summer Winds,” was shown for the third time on August 27 at Shenzhen Jiahua Cinema.

    The film focuses on five students’ high school lives — how they make choices about the future and pursue their dreams while building friendships. It has been screened three times in local theaters and tickets were hotly pursued. It will be screened again in December on SFLS’s 25th anniversary.

    Parents said the film provides another way to get to know their children since most students study in boarding schools and parents seldom know what campus life is like and what their children are doing when they’re not in class.

    A parent of an SFLS student who graduated in 2012, surnamed Han, said after watching the film, he learned a lot about high school life. “The students are very confident and smart. They know what they should do no matter what kinds of difficulties they face. Shenzhen students are very active and are friendly to each other — they are ready to help friends during stressful times and share their burdens and joys,” Han said. “This film is a great success, and they should release a sequel in the future to tell more school life stories.”

    Wu, a junior middle school teacher at SFLS, spoke highly of the film. “This film is a faithful reflection of students’ life. The students are very hard-working and they are very united.”

    The film also struck a chord among student audience members.

    Wendy, a girl who graduated from SFLS last year, told Shenzhen Daily that the film took her back to her high school days, a time when she had a simple and happy life. “You can see through the film that Shenzhen students get a well-rounded education during high school — they can choose from a wide range of student clubs and compete in lots of competitions in different fields. They have their own ideas and have good communication skills. They are not afraid of taking on challenges,” she said.

    The film’s director Yu Lanxin, now an economics student at Tsinghua University, believes that Shenzhen students are open-minded and brave enough to take on challenges. She said that those qualities are best illustrated in the “Sail, the Summer Winds” scene where student Liang Huan struggles with his dreams.

    In the film, Liang cries silently on the way to an interview with a famous university that his parents forced him to apply to. Even though he eventually is pressed into taking a major that he had no interest in, Liang tries his best to pursue his own dreams. Yu said that section of the film echoed the lives of many high school students.