Film synopsis:
This is Life is a feature-length documentary co-directed by 509 Chinese labourers through the lens of their mobile phones. Drawn from user-generated short videos on the Kuaishou platform, the film offers a rare, intimate portrait of everyday life in contemporary China, from truck drivers on endless highways, to textile workers dancing during lunch breaks, to families returning home for Spring Festival. Using a unique vertical split-screen format, This is Life transforms ephemeral content into a shared cinematic experience. Blending moments of absurdity, exhaustion, joy, and quiet resilience, the film explores how ordinary people use short video to document their lives, express themselves, and build community. More than just a documentary, This is Life is a visual experiment in collective storytelling. It challenges conventional notions of authorship, realism, and screen aesthetics in the age of mobile media.

Producer:
Dr Jing Wang is a Tsinghua Zijing Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Oxford, jointly based at the China Centre and the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. Her research focuses on documentary studies, realist cinema, and visual anthropology. With over 12 years of experience as a documentary filmmaker, she integrates academic inquiry with creative practice in projects such as This is Life (2024, Producer). Dr Wang is currently completing her first monograph, Documentary in Fiction: Global Aesthetic Trends in Realistic Film During the Post-Cold War Era, forthcoming from Palgrave Macmillan.

87 min | China | Documentary | Mandarin with English Subtitles | Producer Q&A