In this powerful documentary, Mama Yang, an 84-year-old woman living in New York, finds herself in correspondence with 45 high security prison inmates she views as her own children. Most are Chinese American immigrants, and see in Mama Yang a mother figure they never knew before they stepped through prison walls.
For Mama Yang though, the story is about more than Christian charity. She had already lived a full life in Taiwan when her husband died at age sixty and her son lost their house in a financial blunder. She moved to the US to start anew and lives with a Taiwanese American granddaughter that remains distant. In a film marked by family separations, Mama Yang writes letters – whether to the incarcerated or to her own granddaughter – to heal lifetimes of wounds.
Francisca, Tobias, Sara, David and Frederic are students at the Swiss University of St. Gallen. Each from different backgrounds, they are studying for a degree that the Financial Times has dubbed the “best program in management worldwide.” They all have the same goal: to excel in a career prominently featuring money and power.
The director closely follows these young adults for seven years, from a headhunter interview to their individual successes and setbacks as consultants or entrepreneurs. He asks them about their dreams and ambitions, goes with them on vacations or out to dinner, visits their parents, spends time with them as they prepare for job interviews, and works overtime with them in a hotel room.
Crystal-clear editing tells five stories of five different people, each with their own uncertainties, euphoric moments, fears and heartbreak. Sadder and wiser, at the end of the film they look back on their initial enthusiasm and reflect on how much of it is left at this point in their lives. Through their uninhibited gaze, the audience gets a glimpse of a world that is familiar to only to a few.
源自：https://festival.idfa.nl/en/film/2ef01ca7-b887-461e-b601-50f0b48fe7ac/the-driven-ones/
