‘The Dating Game’ Rolls To Thessaloniki After Raucous Screenings At True/False: “People Were Laughing From Beginning To End”

deadline.com:

The new documentary The Dating Game is lining up dates at film festivals around the world. Director Violet Du Feng’s film — about men in China struggling ardently to find spouses — heads to the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival in Greece for its international premiere this Saturday.

From there it’s on to the Human International Documentary Film Festival in Oslo, Norway. “After that we’re going to CPH:DOX [in Copenhagen],” followed by several U.S.

festivals, the filmmaker tells Deadline. “Some of these festivals haven’t been announced yet, but it’s going to be a tour, busy time.” It may be hard to top her experience at True/False in Columbia, MO, where The Dating Game screened several times, including on the documentary festival’s opening night on Thursday. “There were more than 300 seats,” Feng said. “I’m like, ‘That’s big responsibility.’ So, I was really nervous.” But she needn’t have been. “Every screening, people were just laughing from the beginning to the end, but the level of their laughter is feeling that they can’t control it,” she said. “It was so beautiful.” The humor emerges from observing the protagonists, Zhou, Li, and Wu – “three bachelors embarking on a seven-day dating camp” — as they are taught how to market themselves more successfully to women “by Hao, one of China’s most sought-after dating coaches.” Like Zhou, Li, and Wu, coach Hao comes from a poorer background, an economic status that can negatively impact a man’s odds of attracting a mate in contemporary China where men greatly outnumber women.

Hao overcame the limitations of his background to find a partner – although his wife remains deeply skeptical of the dating tips Hao purveys to his clients.