How do you establish personal relationships with the people you film? You spend many hours with them, so how do you create mutual trust, especially since trust is essential when people allow you into their personal lives? Also, how do you perceive the role of the camera? As soon as you introduce a camera, people might act differently because they know they are being observed. There are a few moments in the “Youth” trilogy where we hear your voice asking questions.

Many people ask how we establish relationships with the people we film. In truth, we don’t do anything special; it happens quite naturally. We arrive at a location, like a workshop, and simply enter. We engage in a brief chat, just one or two minutes, and then we start filming. Initially, people are aware of the camera, but they soon forget it. We try to ask very few questions, mostly filming quietly beside them. Occasionally, there are interactions, but they’re not planned.

Could you tell us more about the editing process of Youth and how the narrative structure evolved during this process? You shot 2,600 hours of footage -how did you edit this material into a film?

When I am shooting, I have to be very close to each character I am filming. I need to be close to them to fully document their stories and ensure I can capture their stories in their entirety. This is during the shooting. At the beginning of the editing process, we realized that there was so much footage. Each sequence was very complete. But if we wanted to use each sequence in its entirety, we wouldn’t be able to edit at all or create a film that could be watched normally. So, at the beginning, I was quite uneasy with the whole editing process. But then, in 2021, we realized that the way we had to approach our editing was to make each sequence as simple as possible. In other words, in 2021, we realized we had to simplify each sequence so that a story could be told in a very short period of time. Each sequence became a unit of around 20 minutes. That’s what we realized in 2021—we needed units of 20 minutes. In the first part of the trilogy, we decided to have nine sequences of around 20 minutes. And in the second film, there are also nine sequences, but some are longer. Overall, they were a bit longer than in the first part, with each sequence lasting between 20 and 25 minutes. During editing, we realized we had a huge amount of footage. Of course, we could have made each sequence very complicated because of the large quantity of footage. That’s why we needed a lot of time to really pick out the most important content. We had to leave out some footage that, on its own, might be very good, but we just couldn’t include those parts in the structure of the whole film. So, we had to leave those parts out. Every director might approach this differently, but for me, when a film is very long and the content is very complicated, the best way to create or conceive of a story is to make the narration and structure as simple as possible. Otherwise, if the film is too long and the content too complicated, the audience might get confused. So, for me, the simplest structure is the best structure.

In general, how do you choose the topics of your films? For example, in Till Madness Do Us Part it was a mental institution, in West of the Tracks an industrial area, in Mrs. Fang a woman who is dying, and in Youth the workshops in the Zhili region. So, in your entire body of work, how do you choose the topics, the locations, and the stories?

In different periods of time, I lived in different locations in China. That’s why there are different themes and locations in my films. For example, the film Crude Oil from 2008: Back then, I was in Northwest China, working on “Dead Souls” and “The Ditch”. One day, while driving in the Gobi Desert, I encountered petrol workers and saw how they lived in the desert, which really touched me. Suddenly, I decided to make a documentary about them, which became the film “Crude Oil”. This was between 2005 and 2010. “Till Madness Do Us Part” was filmed in Yunnan. Between 2010 and 2014, I was working in Yunnan on “Three Sisters”, “Ta’ang”, and another feature film project. That’s how I shot different topics on location there. Then, “Mrs. Fang” came about when I was in Zhili shooting “Youth”, and a local friend told me about his mother. I went to his place, saw his mother, and decided I wanted to make a film about her, but I was very busy with “Youth”. So, I set the idea aside, but later, he suddenly told me that his mother was sick, and I regretted not doing it earlier. So, I decided to film her last days, which became “Mrs. Fang”. At that time, I didn’t even know if I could finish the film or not. But in a way, it was a remedy for the delay that happened with this film. That’s how “Mrs. Fang” was shot.

Finally, what advice would you give to a young filmmaker?

I don’t think I’m in a position to give any advice. But anyway, every filmmaker has to find their own path. Creativity can happen at any age. It’s not that someone older is necessarily more creative or capable. Young people can also be very creative and capable.

Thanks for all your responses.

Interview: Matthias Kyska