Do you know that feeling where you heard a story somewhere and you tell your friends, “Hey, someone should make a movie out of that!” Well, it happened to me. Only the feeling was so strong, that I said to my wife, “Hey, I want to make a movie out of this!” But I’ll be damned if I know where to even begin.

It began with an article I read in the International Herald Tribune on December 30, 2009.. It’s a story about a conflict between a restaurant (Fish Castle) in China and the local authorities, who want to demolish the restaurant to make space for some super project. The Fish Castle refuses to move out until compensations are forked over for recent renovations. A standoff ensues: Fish Castle hires a “super hero” bodyguard. The characters involved in this situation, along with the sheer injustice (and frequency) of these activities of local governments, make for an exciting screenplay.

I have an outline of a script, I have a description of the characters. There is a setting and a location. There is a thick, dark, cynical atmosphere, a political statement, there’s even a movie title.

What I don’t have is equipment, a budget, experience. How can I pull this off?

The movie would illustrate something that’s happening in China for a very long time: political extortion. Locations are rented to eager business entrepreneurs, then sold to contractors from the government. The business owners are forced to hand over their property, usually with unfair compensation.

I will need a significant amount of resources to pull this off. The movie would play in China; the script would be Chinese. I will begin to put together a script and storyboard to further support my project. From then on, I will require a leap of faith.

Read the article and ask yourself if you see a similar red line of a screenplay in there. If there’s anything that comes up in your mind or if you’re willing to help somehow, please let me know.

NY Times article by Andrew Jacobs. Photography by Shiho Fukada.