Despite of being mostly an unknown in the west, in the 70´s, a young Chinese girl named Chen Ping, under the pen name of Sanmao, that she adopted from a beloved comic-book character in china, captivated the hearts of a whole generation of Chinese readers, with her writings about her semi-autobiographical daily experiences in the Sahara with her Spanish husband, Jose, to whom she baptised for her chinese readers with name of Hexi. Her books and writings about her life abroad and specially her love story with Jose, conquered the imagination of her readers. A love story that began with her first stay in Spain, when they met for their first time, and the exotic beauty of the young girl, mesmerized Jose, who at at hat time was just a young 15-year old teenage kid, while she was already in her 20´s. But the age difference was never an issue for the young spaniard kid, who asked to that untamed adventurous girl to wait six years for him, something that she didn´t really took seriously, he was just a teenage kid after all, and the world was on her hands for her to discover, but destiny took his side, and six years after their farewell, fate brought them again together, turning that fairy love tale into a reallity, when they fell in love, moving to the Sahara together, where they got married to later move to the Canarias Islands, where their love story leaded into tragedy when Jose died in a scuba diving accident, leaving a broken-hearted Sanmao behind him, who never really recovered from the lost. At least, not from the eyes of her readers, who moaned Jose´s death keeping their love immortal through her literature.
This Spanish feature documentary written and directed by Ana Pérez De La Fuente and Marta Arribas, invites the audience to immerse into a journey through the worlds of Sanmao, but stripping her of all the mysticism created by her literature, giving us to know Chen Ping, the woman, not the writer, the woman who loved, lost, and traveled around the world looking for herself, without ever managing to doing it so, but always leaving a part of her magic wherever she went.
Through an exceptional work rescuing archive footage, the filmmakers opens a door to the past, leading us across a path, driven by Sanmao´s writings, making us witnesses of her story through her words, bringing us closer to her way of seeing the world, her dreams, her ambitions, her fears and the inner ghosts that haunted her during her whole life, trying make us comprehend, what could have leaded her to her tragic end at the age of 47.
In addition, the documentary also gives us the opportunity to meet her through interviews with family, friends and even popular singers and film stars such as Brigitte Lin, with whom she worked on the film Red Dust, in which Sanmao worked as screenwriter.
Sanmao, The Desert Bride (Sanmao, La Novia del Desierto) is a beautiful homage to a fascinating woman who enjoyed every single minute of her existence, living fast and dying young as the movie stars she admired, remaining immortal on her engaging writings, living forever into the worlds she knew and imagined and made real due her magical narrative.
The documentary is available on Prime video and was released on DVD by Spanish distributor, A CONTRACORRIENTE FILMS
SANMAO: THE DESERT BRIDE: Discovering The Fascinating Woman Behind the Fascinating Writer
December 25, 2021
Despite of being mostly an unknown in the west, in the 70´s, a young Chinese girl named Chen Ping, under the pen name of Sanmao, that she adopted from a beloved comic-book character in china, captivated the hearts of a whole generation of Chinese readers, with her writings about her semi-autobiographical daily experiences in the Sahara with her Spanish husband, Jose, to whom she baptised for her chinese readers with name of Hexi. Her books and writings about her life abroad and specially her love story with Jose, conquered the imagination of her readers. A love story that began with her first stay in Spain, when they met for their first time, and the exotic beauty of the young girl, mesmerized Jose, who at at hat time was just a young 15-year old teenage kid, while she was already in her 20´s. But the age difference was never an issue for the young spaniard kid, who asked to that untamed adventurous girl to wait six years for him, something that she didn´t really took seriously, he was just a teenage kid after all, and the world was on her hands for her to discover, but destiny took his side, and six years after their farewell, fate brought them again together, turning that fairy love tale into a reallity, when they fell in love, moving to the Sahara together, where they got married to later move to the Canarias Islands, where their love story leaded into tragedy when Jose died in a scuba diving accident, leaving a broken-hearted Sanmao behind him, who never really recovered from the lost. At least, not from the eyes of her readers, who moaned Jose´s death keeping their love immortal through her literature.
This Spanish feature documentary written and directed by Ana Pérez De La Fuente and Marta Arribas, invites the audience to immerse into a journey through the worlds of Sanmao, but stripping her of all the mysticism created by her literature, giving us to know Chen Ping, the woman, not the writer, the woman who loved, lost, and traveled around the world looking for herself, without ever managing to doing it so, but always leaving a part of her magic wherever she went.
Through an exceptional work rescuing archive footage, the filmmakers opens a door to the past, leading us across a path, driven by Sanmao´s writings, making us witnesses of her story through her words, bringing us closer to her way of seeing the world, her dreams, her ambitions, her fears and the inner ghosts that haunted her during her whole life, trying make us comprehend, what could have leaded her to her tragic end at the age of 47.
In addition, the documentary also gives us the opportunity to meet her through interviews with family, friends and even popular singers and film stars such as Brigitte Lin, with whom she worked on the film Red Dust, in which Sanmao worked as screenwriter.
Sanmao, The Desert Bride (Sanmao, La Novia del Desierto) is a beautiful homage to a fascinating woman who enjoyed every single minute of her existence, living fast and dying young as the movie stars she admired, remaining immortal on her engaging writings, living forever into the worlds she knew and imagined and made real due her magical narrative.
The documentary is available on Prime video and was released on DVD by Spanish distributor, A CONTRACORRIENTE FILMS
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