Interview with Filmmaker Qian-Hui Xu

On January 31, 2025, China Focus had the honor of hosting independent filmmaker Qian-Hui Xu for a special screening of her documentaries, Dongting Village and 500 Miles Away From Home. The event attracted many students interested in documentary filmmaking, and Qian-Hui Xu held a Zoom Q&A session to engage with the audience and answer their questions. We also had the opportunity to interview Qian-Hui Xu to gain deeper insight into the inspiration behind her two documentaries. Below is the transcript of our conversation.

Could you briefly introduce yourself?

Thank you for having me. I’m currently a Washington DC-based documentarian. My journey into filmmaking began at 19 as a script supervisor for commercial film and TV projects in China. Over the years in the US, I worked as an assistant camera or camera operator on high-profile projects for clients such as the American Veterans Center, District Coyote, and Ernest Medicine, contributing to critically acclaimed productions. However, it was in the fall of 2022 that I began transforming into an independent filmmaker, focusing primarily on documentaries that highlight individuals facing survival difficulties or survival anxiety.

How were these two films conceived (what were their sources of inspiration)?

“Dongting Village” was created in the summer of 2023, when Jiuying (my childhood friend), the protagonist of 500 Miles Away From Home, and I were both going through hard times in our lives, and we decided to collaborate on a film that would help us get out of our mental rut. The apartment where Jiuying was living at the time was a historical building located in the old British Concession in Wuhan, China. The area is now a bustling, fully modernized shopping street in Wuhan, with only one neighborhood, Dongting Village, still relatively intact with the original community look and vibe of Wuhan’s civil society, and of course the stylistic East-meets-West architecture leftover from the colonial period. There have been rumors that Dongting Village will be demolished or commercially transformed. We hope to record the most authentic Wuhan city life before the renovation takes place.
I began the pre-production of “500 Miles Away From Home” right after the completion of “Dongting Village”. Jiuying wanted to resolve a long-standing emotional conflict with her mother, Hengpei during the Lunar New Year holiday in 2024, and it was up to me to document this journey. After learning more about their lives, I was fascinated by their dramatic tensions, the richness of their personalities, and the extensibility of the story, and thus made this observational documentary.

The social issue of intergenerational communication is happening in many countries around the world. In 500 Miles Away From Home, what aspects of Chinese family characteristics do you think are reflected in its storytelling?

First, high expectations on academic performance, which are often underpinned by the parents’ own survival anxiety and social vanity, as the Examination Selection System has long been the gateway to class promotion in Chinese society. Kids, in turn, are subconsciously made to feel guilty for failing to meet their parents’ expectations.

Second, intergenerational communication is often reduced to a stage for power/authority. In education, parents themselves are the authority, and may be overly concerned with opinions of another authority, such as the teacher, while ignoring the true feelings of their children. This is amply demonstrated in the movie’s dinner table conversation scene. The interaction between parents and children lacks effective expressions of love. For example, the mother in the movie, Hengpei, never expressed her psychological burden of failing to meet her father’s expectations of her while he was still alive, and everyone avoids talking about feelings and emotions.

Thirdly, the toxic family triangle “abuser-victim-savior” has appeared with great frequency in family relationships throughout the generations. Family members take turns undertaking these three roles at different stages of life.

In Dongting Village, how did you condense the macro-level changes in Chinese society into such a small-scale narrative?

The “City Symphony” film is a classic form of artistic expression used to showcase the outlook of a city, and even a society in documentary history. Normally, filmmakers will shoot the landmark areas of a city and edit the footage together to give the audience a macro-view. However, I believe that the most effective way to feel a city or a society is to experience the daily life of an ordinary citizen. Therefore, in the filming of “Dongting Village”, we chose the smallest architectural unit in a city, an apartment, to carry the life of ordinary citizens and their historical memories. Abandoned fan switches on the wall, old radio on the refrigerator, stickers left behind by previous residents, and electronic devices on the table piece together different time periods and spaces, and all the voices echoing in this space will become ghosts of the times.No need to elaborate, viewers of different cultural backgrounds will be able to perceive that this is life in China.

Your film “Dongting Village” showcases your innovative use of sound design. Can you talk about your creative choices in this film and how they relate to the everyday realities of globalization?

In “Dongting Village,” sound plays a crucial role in reflecting the characteristics of the community. As someone who has lived in both Eastern and Western societies, I recognize that sounds can sometimes convey the essence of a place more effectively than images. For example, in a working-class community in Wuhan, the close spatial and social relationships mean that daily life sounds, such as arguments, waste disposal broadcasts or the intermixing of American sitcoms and traditional Chinese opera, are easily heard. This layering of sounds reflects the impact of globalization and the coexistence of different cultural influences. The sound design not only highlights the changes in the times but also emphasizes the ongoing dialogue between traditional and modern lifestyles.