At 18:00 on May 28, 2025, the academic screening and creative exchange activity of the film “Say Good Morning to Me” was successfully held in Hall 5 of our Huairou Campus. The event was hosted by the Psychological Quality Education Center of Beijing Film Academy, the Youth League Committee, and the Department of Academic (Research) Affairs, and undertaken by the Propaganda Department of the Youth League Committee, the Student Union, the Graduate Student Union, the College Student TV Station, and the Light and Shadow Academic Media Center.
The event invited the film “Say Good Morning to Me” director/screenwriter Sun Jia, and starring actors Shang Xiaoyi, Bai Xiaoou, Wang Jinsong, and Xu Huanhuan to attend the post-screening exchange session, which was hosted by teacher Jiang Lin from the Psychological Quality Education Center.
The film focuses on the mental health issues of teenagers, telling the story of the heroine Xia Chuzheng who suffers from depression and once wanted to commit suicide, but in the process of a collective sketching trip to the mountains by teachers and students, she gradually came out of the shadows with the help of her classmates and achieved psychological healing. The film has a novel theme, starting from a small incision to a big topic, and is sincere and touching. It provides a new idea for the creation of films of this type, and has a strong practical significance and humanistic care spirit.
After the screening, the first thing to be done was the “Youth Ideological and Political Work” session in the “Xinhuo Cinema” to guide the students to think and reason on the basis of professional exchanges. The guest speaker of this Youth Ideological and Political Work session was the host of the night, Ms. Jiang Lin, the head of the school’s Psychological Quality Education Center. Ms. Jiang shared the concept of “psychological pain” with the students, combined with data, films and clinical psychological work, calling on us to pay attention to the psychological pain of people around us and ourselves.
Director/Screenwriter Sun Jia: A creative journey inspired by my own experiences
Director Sun Jia shared her creative process from script conception to filming. As a graduate of the Beijing Film Academy, she returned to her alma mater with her first work and exchanged ideas with her juniors. Director Sun Jia said that the inspiration for the film came from her personal experience, and she used it to convey her thoughts on depression and related social phenomena. She pointed out that the key to facing depression is to achieve self-reconciliation and learn to cherish yourself. She hopes that this film can arouse more social attention to the depression group. Director Sun Jia also shared that during the filming process, the crew faced many unpredictable difficulties and her solutions.
Starring Wang Jinsong: Exploring the charm of movies between fantasy and reality
Wang Jinsong (playing the role of Old Man Zhao) pointed out that the director ingeniously set up multiple reversals in the film. He emphasized that the essence of the film is like a carefully woven daydream, and its unique charm comes from the clever interweaving of the reality dimension and imagination. Mr. Wang then shared his thoughts on propositions such as depression, pain and death, and hoped that this work could provide an emotional outlet for the audience, allowing a ray of light to penetrate the dark hearts.
Starring Xu Huanhuan: Reflection on parent-child relationship from the perspective of roles
Xu Huanhuan (who plays Xia Chuzheng’s mother) shared her feelings about the role of a mother with a strong desire for control. She mentioned that the director deliberately weakened some of the pressure from the mother when portraying the film, leaving blank spaces for the audience to fill in based on their own experiences. Combined with her personal experience, she was deeply touched and pointed out that maintaining a healthy parent-child relationship requires not only love, but also wisdom to manage.
Starring Shang Xiaoyi: Finding self-acceptance in the role
Shang Xiaoyi (playing Xia Chuzheng) pointed out that her own personality is very different from the role, so she dug deep into her inner emotions that best fit the role in her creation. Talking about her experience of acting in the entire film, her biggest feeling is that the film provides an emotional outlet, and she realized that any emotion can only be truly faced if you accept it yourself first.
Starring Bai Xiaoou: Emotional analysis and thinking behind the characters
Bai Xiaoou (playing Li Mengqi) shared the emotional scene that impressed her the most during the filming. She admitted that the character’s experience was similar to her own, so she had a deep empathy with the character. The open ending set by the director allowed her to extend multiple interpretations of the character’s fate.
The event ended successfully with heated discussions. At the exchange site, students participated enthusiastically and asked questions actively, so the exchange time was extended by a quarter of an hour longer than originally planned. The main creative team not only shared the difficult journey from creative inspiration to image formation, but also had the courage to go straight to the core of social psychological issues such as depression and parent-child relationships. This movie is not only a story, but also a place that triggers emotional resonance, an opportunity to stimulate deep thinking, and brings students a visual experience that combines the value of artistic healing with the depth of humanistic care. I hope that this exchange can arouse more people’s attention to psychological issues, and I hope that this work can touch the hearts of more audiences and turn into an artistic light of comfort, enlightenment and understanding!
