About
Beibei is an ordinary, married, and motherly woman, who lives a standard, methodical life. She was laid off from her job, the primary source of her family's income, during the COVID-19 pandemic. She decides to return to her southern hometown in search of opportunities, initiating the process of settling her family and reorganizing her various relationships. With courage and endurance, she embarks on a continuous exploration, while striving to preserve her desires.
This film adopts a pseudo-documentary style to present the image of a woman confined by reality and relationships, enduring life pressures and inner solitude, yet persistently expanding her sense of self. It portrays her journey of self-exploration and emotions, beyond her roles as a wife, mother, and daughter.


Director
ALAN | Ms |China
The director of this film, Alan Zhang, is born in the 90s. She is from China, is a director, painter, artist, feminist activist.
She has held two solo art exhibitions called Leaving Beijing and Letting You In. She also has two video creations of performance art works, called Casting Away and Looking for a Sperm.
Director's Statement
“I decided to make the film This Woman in 2021, without any hesitation.
It was my second year of being a mother. I was thrilled to have the chance to shoot a special "female movie". This is an experiment for both of us, two women who are enthusiastic about films and always fascinated by the topics of marriage, family, love, intimacy, and self-exploration. This is how this film came about.
Despite all the limitations, we still managed to complete the film as planned. I look forward to reaching out to a wider audience and involving more people to watch this film and discuss films that highlight women’s conditions, the challenges they face as well as the courage they harbor.”

In post-editing
Film Still
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Film Review

“A startlingly intimate and alluringly intricate tangle of fiction and faux documentary”
- Richard Brody, The New Yorker
“Alan’s messily/borderline-confoundingly structured This Woman presents as the Chinese observational documentary equivalent of a bourgeois melodrama about infidelity.”
—Vadim Rizov


“Documenting fiction and fictionalising documents of self-exploration..”
— Maja Korbecka
“The protagonist's quest creates a dialogue with different generations and allows the filmmaker to profoundly question the role of women in contemporary Chinese society: how relations are predetermined, what are the rules and the expectations, and how it might be possible to emancipate oneself from them. With a playful tone and a keen use of cinematic language, This Woman is eminently political and timely.”
— Violeta Bava

Awards








