Independent film Shun Li and the Poet shown at Lander Library

Shun Li and the Poet
Lander Library
Friday, November 22,  7pm
 
In the lagoon of Venice, remote from the city's famous charms, is an island fishing village named Chioggia. Here, since time immemorial, fishermen set out to feed the city's hunger for scampi and the other creatures trapped in their nets. It is a small community, and many of the regulars hang out at the same tavern.
 
One of these is Bepi, he plays a man facing retirement, who lost his wife a year ago, and is a solitary soul. The bar is owned by Chinese, and one day, a new bartender appears. This is Shun Li, in her 30s, divorced, working to pay back the people who paid to bring her from China and to pay for a ticket so her 8-year-old son can join her.
 
The customers, like all the regulars in small provincial places, know each other well and don't fail to observe a thing. When a subtle, unstated friendship begins to form between Shun Li and Bepi, they do not approve.
They feel somehow threatened, as if this relationship will disturb the fixed pattern of their days.
 
We learn something of the system that brought Shun Li to Italy, first to a factory in Rome, and now to Chioggia. She essentially works for free to pay off her debt and lives with Lian, another Chinese woman. It is forbidden for her to fraternize with the locals, and when word of her new friendship gets back, as it is sure to do, she is told to have nothing more to do with Bepi. For her this is inarguable; her life centers on being reunited with her son.