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It is so exciting for me to launch this new section of Cut to the Take with an interview with Alan Zhang, the winner of the 2nd edition of Mint Chinese Film Festival in the category of Best Feature. This is the first women-organised Chinese film festival in the UK. It takes place in the Keswick Alhambra Cinema (Keswick, England), and is one of the most beautiful and enlightening experiences a cinema lover can have.

After careful consideration, the jury of the festival decided that This Woman (2023) was the best film of this edition of MintCFF and, not gonna lie, I totally agree.

I had the opportunity to watch and review This Woman at home before the festival started. Unsurprisingly, I absolutely fell in love with it! The strength and rebellion portrayed by its main character is a magnet that attracts the audience and hooks them up for the full duration of the feature.

My enthralment with this powerful work was such that I needed to delve into the creator’s mind: Alan Zhang. The results don’t disappoint.

The brains behind This Woman

Alan Zhang is a Chinese director, artist and activist who focuses on feminism as the main theme for her work. After exhibiting her paintings and video creations of performative art, she has tried her hand at feature films.

This Woman is her first art work of this type. However, it already showcases Zhang’s promising future in filmmaking, reaping a Zonta Award for her work as a female filmmaker and a Special Jury Award in the International Competition of Visions du Réel 2023.

Talking to Alan Zhang

My interview with Alan started at 3 pm UTC, which was 11pm CST for her, as well as for my incredibly talented translator and Communication and Outreach Advisor of MintCFF, Wenqi Zhang.

Lucy Muñoz: I’m so excited to interview you, Alan! How are you feeling at the moment? What have you been doing?

Alan Zhang: I’ve been quite tired today. I’ve been moving recently and have just put my almost four-year-old to sleep, so I’m in a tired and sleepy state. I’m a single mum at the moment, so I’m still spending a lot of time and energy on raising my kid.

Recently, about a month ago, I went to Tokyo, where there was a screening of This Woman in the University of Tokyo. A kind of academic event. That’s kind of the only thing I’ve done related with This Woman or film in probably the last month or so. The rest of the time, I have been anxious. Because of the Chinese New Year holiday in China, a lot of things are on hold, and I have ideas to create, but I’m not inspired on how to bring them to life. I wanted to create some new content, because I felt like This Woman is far from me now.

LM: You are saying that you are now far from This Woman, but, what made you start that path in the first pace?

AZ: Well, actually, I majored in Broadcast and Television Directing in college. I started learning it during high school, and, in China, an art major requires a special art exam for college entrance. I was in my teens, I didn’t really like film that much, I wasn’t really a film fan. I wasn’t an obsessive creator, I was just trying to escape from the regular college entrance exams, and I felt that as an art-exam candidate I was more free, and that’s how I got into film and started to study choreography and directing. It was a very early beginning.

LM: In this first feature, how did you choose your protagonist? Why her and not an actress? Is This Woman part of her real life story?

AZ: Of course, the story originates a lot from the main character’s real life, but I’m also very willing and motivated to film this topic because I’m also very involved in it. [This topic being] women in marriage and childbearing and family and love and self. These aspects are reflected together in the story of This Woman.

LM: You are an activist and a feminist. So, how do your principles and views influence your movies? Are your next projects also going to follow the same theme, or are you thinking about switching to something different?

AZ: Although I was studying Broadcast and Television Directing more than ten years ago, I’m not a film fan and I don’t have an obsession with making films, so I didn’t do that after I graduated. But I’ve been exploring collaborative feminist themes on my own. Promoting feminist works is like a full-time job for me. The experience of my own life in recent years, including the practices of marriage and childbearing, are actually very relevant to feminism, and I feel like they’re all intertwined. So when I shot the film, I didn’t think about how I was going to incorporate these feminist things into the film, rather the film has naturally incorporated my perspective and attitude.

LM: And how do the audiences react to your work? Have you encountered positive reactions or has there been some opposition?

AZ: A very large number of people feel that there are a lot of things like this around, such as cheating, or things like extramarital affairs, and most people agree that they feel that this is a common thing. One of the most common comments is that a male who does this in his life is actually often supported and forgiven, but a female is actually less able to do this, so many people would see this as a gender-flipped version of the story. But everyone knows that if we take heterosexuality as a base, most of male extramarital affairs are also with women, only that women don’t voice them out because society doesn’t allow them to do so.

LM: Have you noticed any behavioural difference from galleries or cinemas for being a woman artist?

AZ: The answer is pretty much yes. For example, at this year’s FIRST International Film Festival, although we won an award in the women’s section, we didn’t make it into the main competition, even though everyone thought that the quality of our film was as good as the films in the main competition. Also, regardless of getting awards overseas or domestically, even though there’s very little awards domestically, there won’t be any media covereage at all.

Our own assumption is that the reason for this is our focus on explicit feminist content, which is taboo in our mainstream media context. It’s more offensive, aggressive, and doesn’t spread enough “positive energy” to be shared.

LM: What do you think should change in the art sphere to improve the female presence in it?

AZ: It’s quite hard, really quite hard. First of all, having more female creators to create female stories is definitely a crucial way. But from a strategic point of view, if women want to enter the mainstream context or to be known by more people and get more opportunities, they may have to “restrain” their “offensive” content a little bit.

But sharing your opinions and views through this strategy is really hard. On a global scale (for learning and improving), we can see that there are still a lot of female creators and female filmmakers who are doing quite well, for example, Anatomy of a Fall is quite good in that sense.

I think for feminist filmmakers, or filmmakers who want to show richer gender issues, it’s definitely a long endeavour. For example, I’m just starting, so if I want to make some multi-gender works in the future, I definitely won’t do it at an early stage of career. Otherwise, it’s hard to develop my film career in China, so I can only say that it’s a strategy to do it step by step.

LM: Is there any help institutionally for female artists that are starting? How’s the situation in China? Have you received any help or absolutely not?

AZ: In fact, when I was shooting the film, as it was entirely my own business, there was no support from any institution. There was help from a film company in the post-production, but this company is just a normal one, not a female-filmmaking supporting one.

However, when we went to film festivals abroad, we learnt that there were indeed some special grants for women’s projects. I’m not sure if the requirements are strict, but if there is such an opportunity, I would love to find some support.

LM: After This woman, what will be your next project? Will you create more films or other type of art?

AZ: I like painting in daily life, and I’ve been painting since 2014. But painting is more like a daily and emotional expression for me.

Filmmaking is different. Film is a more integrated thing, and it can mix a lot of emotions, stories, and even opinions and attitudes in an hour’s work. That’s why film is a very attractive form of expression for me, and I’m willing to continue making it. I’m not sure about the far future, but in the near future, my plan is to create some more films around women’s life experiences, including my own life experiences as a woman.

LM: How does being a young single mom affect your artistic career?

AZ: These personal experiences have had an impact for sure. But, because This Woman was born before I became a single mum, it hasn’t been influenced too much. But some of the concepts in it, such as marriage, childbirth, or relationships, are things that have been on my mind for a long time.

At the same time, these personal experiences I’ve had have definitely made an impact on the lens through which I see the world. For example, marriage, being a mother and raising children. Although I’m not currently working on any film, I have some plans that I’m excited about, such as those about divorce, or those that are related to or intertwined with marriage, parenthood, family, and children’s education, etc.

Lastly, because of my personal choice of being relatively marginal, or non-mainstream, the theme of my work may not be in the mainstream narrative system. However, the experience of the protagonist (in the future creation) will still be based on the collision of her personal concepts or attitudes with the mainstream environment, and will not be completely detached from the reality.

This is because the influence of mainstream society on individuals is inevitable. For example, the protagonist of a story may be dissatisfied with the environment in which they live, but still want to instill their own opinion or attitude in the social framework of life, thus generating some collision between the individual and the society.

Translation by: Wendy Zhang, Communication and Outreach Advisor of the Mint Chinese Film Festival.

What’s your take? Are you a female filmmaker? Whether you are just starting or already have a few projects on your belt, I’d love to hear all about it and learn about your experiences! So please don’t hesitate to contact me for a chat or an interview.

Despite the latest improvements the cinema sphere is still very much a man’s world. Stories like yours and Alan’s are incredibly important to share and learn from each other.

Additionally, if you’re just here to read and have some fun, don’t hesitate to let me know your thoughts in the comments section below, or leave a message in my contact page! For more reviews and cinema-related articles, check out the rest of my blog! 😀

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