Gary Lennon: “There is a pianomania in China”

Piano Dreams directed by Gary Lennon and Richard Hughes was screened on Thursday 27 October at the Cervantes Theatre. The film, which competes in the History Time section of the 67th Semana, is set in China. A city in which there are currently 40 million piano students, many of them practising up to ten hours a day.

“It’s a country that doesn’t have a social system that supports families and there is incredible pressure,” explained Gary Lennon after the screening. “What happens in China is a different case”, which, as he commented during the colloquium, is not comparable to the situation in Europe due to its culture, history and ideology.

“There is a pianomania in China that makes more people play the piano compared to the rest of the world. The piano is seen as a major sign of a cosmopolitan life, and it is also a very competitive and noisy country, as we have seen in the film”.

The short film Miss D directed by Paddy Hayes was also shown. This short film tells the story of an Irish teenager known only as ‘Miss D’ because she is a minor, whose pregnancy presents a foetal anomaly incompatible with the survival of the newborn and fights for her right to travel abroad to have an abortion. Because she is a ward of the state, she is prevented from doing so, sparking a national debate and court case over the right to life.