Paris at sunset, a girl walks into a kebab restaurant off the street and is forced to wait 15 minutes for her take-out. In this short time, she begins to observe the world outside her own life.

A wandering old man is whiling his time away here. On the day of his birthday he craves some warmth to soothe his broken heart.

In these fifteen minutes of their lives, they meet and then they bid each other farewell, each gleaning a little lustre.

Le vieil homme :
" La personne qui doit mourir, s'il y a des embouteillages, il ne lui reste que 15 minutes à vivre. "
......
La fille asiatique :
"Je comprends pas. De quoi 15 minutes ? Vous avez bien dit 15 minutes ?"
......

During my work as a photographer, I travelled to Paris once or twice every year. The City by night, its lights – always mesmerised me. Whenever I walked the streets I thought of the stories that must play out here on a daily basis; the restaurants and cafés always reminded me of my favourite American painter, Edward Hopper. At the same time, I regretted not being able to interact more intimately with this city and its inhabitants and this subsequently formed the premise for my short film. It's a story set in Paris about encounters, about waiting, and especially about communication. I wanted to challenge myself in using a foreign language to shoot my first short film, which in itself was already my attempt to use the new artistic language of cinema to tell a story.

I had to constantly remind myself that films centered on stories rather than the visual. For the world where this story would take place, I chose one of the ubiquitous kebab restaurants in Paris. Abandoning any thoughts I had about making a surrealistic film, I focused instead on an extraordinary moment in real life. The film is about communication, a story about this girl with Chinese background who shuts herself away to look at the world and then her gradual rapprochement with it. I wanted these twenty minutes to express only a short clip from life – that is to say a commonplace meeting in the two protagonists' droning lives – regardless of whether this encounter really sparked anything. This short film also marks my first contact with the medium of cinema and the first tentative probing into its possibilities.

"I wanted to challenge myself in using a foreign language (French) to shoot my first short film, which in itself was already my attempt to use the new artistic language of cinema to tell a story."

I took my savings to fund this film, along with the fifteen-page long script, and flew from New York to Paris, where I rented a narrow apartment in the 19th arrondissement for forty days. Here we did all the castings and meetings, I listened to birdsong at dawn every day, worried about the production and watched as gradually the story progressed closer to me, anticipating the final product. In the end, a total of five nights were spent filming. I called this movie A Parisian Movie because it was something I journeyed to Paris for and injected my best memories about the city into.

I would like to specially thank the husband and wife team Franchin Don and Wenyi Zheng for their huge support. I am also grateful to all these actors and film students who offered to work gratis – it really was our conviction in cinema which allowed this short film to become reality.

QUENTIN SHIH | July, 2011. New York.

QUENTIN SHIH (aka XIAOFAN SHI), born in Tianjin, China in 1975, lives and works as a camera artist/movie director between New York and Beijing.

A self-taught photographer, he began to shoot photos in college for local underground musicians and artists . After graduation, he came to Beijing to develop his career as a professional photographer/artist. From 2000 to 2002, he participated in exhibitions in China and America with his fine art photographic works and his works have been collected by American museums, such as the Danforth Museum of Art and the Worcester Art Museum.

" A Parisian Movie | Séquence Parisienne (2011)
was his first short movie produced in Paris, France."

During the last few years, he has been producing work for top commercial clients and international publications such as Adidas, Microsoft, Sony, Siemens, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and Esquire. His advertising campaigns work have won numerous prestigious international advertising and photography awards. In 2007, Quentin was named 'Photographer of the Year' by Esquire Magazine (China). In the following years, he joined lots group exhibitions and solo exhibitions in China, Europe, Southeast Asia and United States.

As one of the leading young Chinese photographers, Quentin Shih is well recognized for his individual artistic style which utilizes vast sets and dramatic lighting to engage in emotional narratives. Now, he is returning to his roots in fine art photography and challenging its techniques and concepts into his commercial and fashion photography in order to achieve a unique symbiosis. At the same time, he is also working on his film projects, A Parisian Movie (2011) was his first short movie produced in Paris, France.

Visit QUENTIN SHIH's Photography website: www.quentinshih.com

Official Sites: WWW.APARISIANMOVIE.COM
Other Sites: PAGE ON FACEBOOK | PAGE ON IMDb
Language: FRENCH
Subtitles: ENGLISH, CHINESE SIMPLIFIED
Release Date: JULY, 2011
Also Known As: SÉQUENCE PARISIENNE | 一部巴黎电影
Filming Locations: PARIS, FRANCE
Runtime: APPROX. 24 MINUTES
Sound Mix: ULTRA STEREO
Color: COLOR
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Camera: ARRI ALEXA
Budget: €30,000
Distribution Medium: DVD and Blu-ray Disc

A DOUBLESHOTS FILMS and KOI FILM STUDIO Production
A QUENTIN SHIH (aka XIAOFAN SHI) Film