Neither Donkey, Nor Horse
ROBIN WANG
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LOGLINE
Manchurian Plague, 1910, a young Chinese doctor must risk his life, career, and reputation to champion his unorthodox discovery about the disease’s deadly evolution.
SYNOPSIS
Manchuria, 1910. One year before the collapse of China’s last imperial dynasty. Cambridge-educated Dr. Wu Lien-teh returns to pre-modern China to investigate a deadly, mysterious epidemic that has ravaged its Northeastern colonized region of Manchuria. There, he must fight against more than just the disease, but also ignorance, racism, and the population’s distrust of modern science. The film focuses on Dr. Wu’s groundbreaking discovery that the pathogen behind the epidemic — Yersinia Pestis — is capable of airborne transmission and his subsequent battle to convince the cynical public to put on what became the N95 Masks of today. A tale filled with grief, hope, and sacrifice, Neither Donkey Nor Horse is at once a historical epic and a contemporary fable: the film honors the resilience of scientific inquiry amidst humanity’s worst crises while shedding light on what must be done to confront similar disasters today and in the future.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Neither Donkey Nor Horse is a 20-minute historical drama biopic short film set in the context of the Great Manchurian Plague of 1910. The film dramatizes the true life story of Nobel Prize-nominated scientist Dr. Wu Lien-teh and his perilous quest leading his pre-modern Chinese community and Western scientific establishment to combat a deadly, contagious epidemic that the world had never yet seen.
This project is jointly supported by the USC School of Cinematic Arts and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation — with a focus to promote and support the accurate, realistic, and non-stereotypical portrayal of science and scientists from underrepresented communities. Past Sloan Foundation-supported short films have screened at film festivals such as Sundance, Berlinale, and Telluride and have gone on to receive Student Academy Awards, Student Emmys, and DGA Student Awards. We are planning to make this short film as a proof-of-concept project for an upcoming six-part mini-series about the Manchurian Plague.
PITCH VIDEO
LOOKBOOK
RIDE ON A DONKEY TODAY
Robin Wang. Co-Writer & Director
Zhongyu (Robin) Wang is a Student Emmy-winning director, producer, and screenwriter. He holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English from Duke University and an MFA degree in Film & Television Production from the University of Southern California, where he is the Jack Oakie Scholar in Comedy Directing, the Irvin Kershner Scholar in Documentary Filmmaking, and an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Full Production Grantee.
As a director and producer, Wang has brought his works to over a hundred international film festivals worldwide. The short films he directed have been official selections of Oscar-qualifying film festivals such as LA Outfest, Urbanworld, deadCenter, and Bronzelens. In particular, Wei-Lai, the USC Thesis film he directed in Fall 2021, won the Best Comedy Series at the 42nd College Television Awards and streamed on PBS Socal and Omeleto. In China, Wei-Lai was selected for the staff pick and best drama films of the year 2022 on Xinpianchang (China’s equivalent of Vimeo), where the film garnered a total of 166K views in China alone. Wei-Lai was created on a budget of 20K. With a much higher budget, Neither Donkey Nor Horse will strive for even higher global exposure, and industry influence. (Click on THIS LINK to watch Wei-Lai).
Ellen Eliasoph. Executive Producer
Ellen R. Eliasoph is a veteran film executive and producer who has spent the last 30 years building bridges among the film industries of Asia, Australasia, and Hollywood. She became the first Hollywood executive to work in China when she established Warner Bros.’ Beijing office in 1994. During her tenure at WB, she supervised the company’s production operations throughout Asia. Among these projects were The Painted Veil, starring Edward Norton and Naomi Watts, and The Last Samurai, starring Tom Cruise. After becoming the founding CEO of Village Roadshow Pictures Asia in 2011, Eliasoph executive produced Stephen Chow's blockbuster Journey to the West (2013) and Jackie Chan sci-fi comedy Bleeding Steel (2017), and produced several features, including Zhang Yimou’s globally celebrated Shadow (2018).
Eliasoph launched her current company, Starry Dome Productions, in 2021. Its upcoming slate includes writer-director Ran Huang’s debut feature What Remains (2023), which stars Andrea Riseborough and Stellan Skarsgard; an eco-thriller based on Qiufan Chen’s award-winning novel Waste Tide; a drama adapted from Yevgeny Zamyatin’s classic sci-fi novel WE; and a soon to be announced epic feature based upon a script by an Oscar-winning writer.
Eliasoph is a member of AMPAS, the Producers Guild of America, and the Australia Academy of Cinema and Television Arts.
Jesse Alutman. Producer/Co-Writer
Jesse Aultman is a writer and director interested in exploring ideas about the American south, religion, and mythology. Originally from Alabama, Aultman fell in love with the horror genre through urban legends and campfire stories. For him, these stories fostered a deep childhood fascination with what remains hidden outside of human view — the mystical, unknowable, and supernatural.
Through his work, he attempts to create a visual campfire story — an urban legend that compels us to come to terms with the idea that maybe, even in the age of science, myths still exist.
Aultman is now pursuing his MFA in Film and Television Production at the University of Southern California and is the recipient of the Fox Fellowship Scholarship and the Irving Lerner Endowment Finishing Fund.
Aslan Dalgic. Producer
Aslan Dalgic is a Student Academy Award–nominated director and producer based in Los Angeles. In addition to his Turkish origins, most of Dalgic’s childhood was spent traversing borders across the rich and diverse cultural landscapes in Switzerland, Pakistan, Vietnam, and Hong Kong. After gaining a unique worldview and a profound appreciation of history and culture, he aspires to produce fictional features, series, and shorts revealing stories that take place on the intersections of cultures. In addition, Dalgic’s filmmaking oeuvre encapsulates documentaries shedding light on climate change and critical social justice issues. His recent documentary Waves Apart (2022), which exposes the dark antisemitic history in California’s surfing culture, screened at the Oscar-qualifying Santa Barbra International Film Festival and the American Documentary and Animation Film Festival and earned him a nomination for the 49th Student Academy Award for Best Documentary.
Lilith Mo. Producer
Lilith Mo is a director and producer currently pursuing an MFA degree at USC School of Cinematic Arts. As a first-gen college student who grew up in international and boarding schools in Chengdu, China, and later lived in Australia, she is deeply interested in stories exploring multicultural perspectives that delve into universal themes such as generational trauma, cultural and gender identity, and belonging. As a passionate advocate for diversity and inclusion in the industry, Mo’s past work demonstrates a strong track record of telling stories that center around Asian and other minority groups, often featuring female and LGBTQ+ cast and crew in key roles. She firmly believes that the only way to amplify underrepresented voices is by offering them a seat at the table.
Christen Vanderbilt. Producer
Chirsten Vanderbilt’s passion for storytelling began on an ordinary day in a 4th-grade classroom on Chicago’s South Side. A typical spelling assignment turned into her first thirty-eight-page adventure short story. That experience transformed the way she wanted to see herself and others represented in film and television. Thus, her curiosity for potent cinematic storytelling led her to the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts.
After graduating with a degree in English from USC, she worked in Special Education at a local bilingual elementary school in Texas. She also directed and produced a short documentary about teaching Special Education in a global pandemic. As a storyteller and current second-year Film and TV Production MFA candidate, Vanderbilt explores the power of empathy and human connection through both documentaries and narrative films. She is the recipient of the George Lucas and Mellody Hobson Endowed Student Support Scholarship.
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