The Sons of Yili River

Project Description

Length:  12mins19sec

Director: Lucas Silva Campos

Cast:

The short tale is about two men who grew up together and play accordion by the Yili River, Alexander Sergeievich Zazulin of ethnic Russian minority and Liang Gang of the Han group.

They grew up around the Russian minority community. So they learned a lot about the accordion culture and now Alexander has his own accordion museum in Yining City, XinJiang. The collection includes almost one thousand instruments, and about 800 accordions.

This film is about their friendship and what the accordion means to these men`s lives. It is also about the exchange of cultures. Both Chinese and Russian cultural elements – music, in this case – blend together and were created into something new. These are only two of many sons of the Yili River and in them we see the many possibilities of cultural exchanges. Sharing their lives here in China, they are like brothers.