[Movers & Shakers] Luo Tong & Her Incredible Documentary

Editor's Note:

We caught Shanghai Girl’s in cinemas, and let’s just say: it’s absolutely worth your time. Luo Tong’s documentary hits you with the same deeply emotional poignancy that The Joy Luck Club brought, but with a rawer edge that sticks with you long after the credits roll. For expats in particular, there is so much in the film that showcases what life in Shanghai was like in the 1990's, vastly different. It’s mesmerizing, especially when you consider how this generation of women has witnessed not just personal evolution, but a seismic shift in the fabric of life in China over the past 30 years.

Bring your friends. Bring tissues. It’s brilliant.

Against the rapidly transforming backdrop that was Shanghai in the 1990s, performing arts high school student Luo Tong was a member of a high school choir group that achieved national fame touring the country. Now, 30 years later, she's a documentary filmmaker and producer who has reunited with her old chorus mates to observe and listen to the differing and shared melodies of their lives in the last three decades. Shanghai Girls is a graceful, moving, inspiring, and really very funny "portrait of a generation" of Shanghai women who came up in a changing society and forged their own definitions of family, friendship, marriage, work and love in a society that is changing, still.

Released just this November, Shanghai Girls comes to us from LPDocs, whose previous work includes the James Cameron executive-produced Titanic documentary The Six, the recently debuted M on the Bund documentary, and the traditional orchestral documentary A Farewell Song. Group screenings are now available for Shanghai Girls – more on that at the very bottom.

We sat down with Shanghai Girls' director Luo Tong and associate producer and writer Matthew Baron to talk about getting the band back together for the documentary.

CNS: So, tell us about the source inspiration for the documentary, you tell us about the high school you went to.

Luo Tong: It was a performing arts school with students from all over the country. I was one of the students from Shanghai, so I was local and living at home, but most of the students were in dormitories, coming from all over. And so basically we just studied singing, dancing, and piano. I was also taking on a drumming course.

But I really liked the atmosphere at school. It was an inspirational time for me. I don't have any siblings. I'm an only child, and my mom and dad split up when I was very young. So I always had this thing for friendship, sisterhood, and being with crowds. Creating something with other people. So that was something that I initiated in my head during that time.

CNS: So the basis for the group is the choir. Tell us about it. What sort of music were you performing?

LT: Like a lot of traditional... classic, you know, group singing music. I mean, it's not pop, but... I imagine it was like folk music, maybe two songs that were Chinese songs, and almost every single song was like American folk songs or traditional European-adapted Chinese versions of those songs.

CNS: And what is this rising to national prominence? You won a bit of national fame?

LT: Well, at the time, the Shanghai government was trying to set up, I guess, what they call "soft diplomacy" nowadays. So there were a lot of performing arts troupes being sent around – dancing, singing, or even poetry readings or something, formed by students who were aged around 16 to 18.

And they would send these troupes to join competitions, sometimes overseas as well, but mostly representing Shanghai and performing on tour nationally. So we were in one of the troupes, the choir troupes. And so it's called the Shanghai Girls Choir Group, but it also...

We had another official name, which is "Shanghai Students Number One Choir Group."

It's catchy.

CNS: That must be a good memory though, right? That sounds like lots of fun traveling around performing.

LT: Oh yeah. That's how the sisterhood formed.

CNS: So the film project grew out of the choir's reunion?

LT: When I have a chance, I'm always organizing reunions. I really love reunions. We were all from the same class. Class 1993, but like a class A and a class B. So there were two separate units – and we always competed against each other.

Are you still competing 30 years later? Who's winning?

LT:… Well, we made a film. [Laughs.]

And so it started with... We saw a video posted online – class A had organized a reunion. And they were singing – they had like 20 people somewhere in a restaurant that is run by one of the main characters later on in the film.

And then I was like, Oh, can I join you? I got on very well with some people from class A. So I really wanted to have this joint Class '93 reunion. And so some of us from both classes started to organize it.

CNS: Did you already have the idea for the film at this point?

LT: Well, not formally. The earlier reunion had its event film, and we had this history of competing against each other. I thought, well, because I make films anyways, I could bring my crew down and do a good job of it. But just to make a party film recorded on professional cameras with professional edit suites.

So, that was the idea. And then until the day when everyone turned up, we were filming it just for like a five-minute video. But then I started talking to people individually who would eventually comprise the cast, and they all had kind of interesting stories.

So, I was thinking maybe I would like to take these stories and follow them further outside of the reunion. And that's what happened. We just spent the time and followed up with everyone. I brought my crew to visit individual characters.

CNS: How receptive were your old classmates to the idea of being in a movie?

LT: They were very open. They were very comfortable with the crew being there and me asking questions and digging into their private lives. It was just a really open process. It went well initially, and I started to plan more scenes. The film developed from these interactions.

CNS: To take a step back and go back to the reunion, what was it like getting the group back together after so many years? Did the group dynamic change over the three decades?

LT: I think everyone's still the same, really.

Matthew: Working on the project was so interesting. I was meeting all of these very well-dressed and confident, very respectable, going-into-middle-age women, very sensible and so forth, who have families running businesses... and well... the second they get back together...

…screaming at each other immediately. [Laughs.]

LT: Right back to being teenagers.

Matthew: Exactly. It's like you immediately get a sense of, this is what these people were like when they were in their mid-teens in high school.

LT: Right, right.

Matthew: Just shrieking at each other. And then the poor teachers who are in the film and coming to these reunions as well are suddenly having to be teachers again.

LT: Yeah, so at reunions, we usually act like we were in our teens.

CNS: So, approaching it as a more in-depth film, were you trying to forge out a narrative arc for the film, or were you just doing exploratory interviews and seeing what happened?

LT: Yeah, the latter. We had some subjects planned to ask about, you know, about women growing up, about motherhood, about bringing up children of their own, you know, like subjects that were relatable to people of our age.

And then during our conversation, I would bring up those subjects and we would start unpacking all these things. But, you know, as far as a narrative for a film, when we were filming, it wasn't very clear how we were going to edit it.

Matthew: It was very organic. I think sort of almost deliberately, we tried to stay away from certain tropes and stereotypes that one could follow, like a trauma narrative. Or a leading character narrative or whatever. Like really just saying, that I want to see who these women are.

LT: Yeah, because before we went in, we didn't know what kind of stories they were going to share. And some, like the domestic abusive stories, were quite shocking to us. I never pictured that one of my very confident, you know, brilliant classmates would be experiencing something like that.

CNS: Was it difficult to get your classmates to open up and reveal intimate, personal struggles?

LT: Not really at all, no. It was quite easy actually. We grew up together, and we've known each other since we were very young. And we sort of were in touch over the years.

It's ended up being a very honest piece of work.

CNS: Do you think that social climate is still true today for young women in high school?

LT: Certainly, there is much more pressure for young people, girls and boys, at high school in general.

There's a lot more homework, and the pressure from the family, school, and society is that if you don't do the subjects well, you might not be able to find a job; you might not be able to have a good future. It feels like that's the only way. You have to be academically good so that you can get into the routine of getting a good job and getting better pay.

But back 30 years ago, it felt like you could be a singer, you could do business, you could find a job, and somewhere a stable life would be possible.

But then at the same time, girls like us in our age, when we were younger, there was also the traditional value that was pouring onto you. As a woman, a job is not that important. You would need to marry someone who has a good job that's good enough for you and looking after your family. That's the main role of a woman, that ideal back then, I mean.

CNS: What kind of audience do you hope to reach with this film? And how do you envision it impacting viewers? Who do you hope will see this film?

LT: To be honest, I'm not going to answer the questions straight away. Because it's my personal life and I'm heavily involved. I'm one of the characters in the film…

But I feel, like even now, when I've watched it so many times during the last few weeks, it still resonates. I still feel moved. It's not because I am in it or it's about the people that are close to me.

It's about a generation of women, yes. The characters I chose happen to be women, but everyone who's been a teen would feel the same. It's not just about women in Shanghai, this particular city. It's about everyone who has shared friendships when they were in their teens and who grew apart and never saw each other and who has been through a lot.

When you watch it, it feels like someone's life is vividly demonstrated in front of you. And it could be anyone who shares this kind of emotion with you, like growing up. I think that people who have the patience to sit down for 90 minutes and watch the film are my audience.

Matthew: I've not watched it quite as many times as she has, but every time I watch it, I fall in love with it again, despite being so familiar with its work.

I genuinely fall in love with it every time. And it's so far removed. I'm not a woman. I'm not from Shanghai. I'm not of LT's generation. But there's something that resonates.

And it's so interesting, like the ability to just be able to laugh with these characters or to recognize the same emotions as these characters. And I think part of that is the kind of an experimental, if you will, approach that LT took, where you really do feel like you're just sitting around with a group of friends or a group of neighbors or whatever it might be.

There's a certain compassion and empathy that the film sort of elicits, but it's not one-sided. It's mutual. It's almost like the characters are connecting with you as much as you connect with the characters.

CNS: I was going to ask you how you approached creating the visual elements of the film and the technical film strategies you adopted to convey these stories.

LT: I wanted the cameras to be very close with the character. Not necessarily the camera physically being close to the character because we used long lenses, but I specifically wanted a lot of close-ups.

Yeah, I wanted to bring the audience this intimate feeling that I have as a physical person being there at the scene. It's quite dramatic. And especially when it's on the big screen in cinemas, you would feel like it's right at you. You can see details of every expression on the faces.

I've also left some scenes where I, as a character, am talking to my camera crew. So it feels more real, like the audience is next to me and we're having a chat as well.

CNS: How about the post-production process? What was the editing like? You had all this material, and you're trying to condense it down, I'm guessing. 900 hours worth of film into 90 minutes or something.

Matthew: LT sort of has this great attitude with her work. Similar to the M on the Bund project, where it's like, if a story is going to present itself, I'm going to do it.

And I think this kind of came off the back of when we did The Six.

CNS: The Six was really well received.

Matthew: Yeah, exactly.

The Six was like a little nugget of an idea that just kind of exploded, and it became this really big thing. Of course, but that one was about research and discovery. For The Six, we had a treatment to start with.

But for Shanghai Girls, we know roughly what structure the film is going to be because we know what it was about. We were like, Oh, let's use the reunion, the singing, to connect all the scenes individually. They were all individual stories.

But how do we tie them into one bigger theme? For a while, I think we were talking about using LT, the character, as a thread to connect everything. So LT herself, the journey has to be discovered from two years ago when she's having a breakdown in her marriage. And then she explores by visiting all the girls and picking up friends.

LT: Yeah, so from the writer's point of view, and he's like, You've got to resolve something at the end for the characters. So we came up with a few solutions for this main character, who at the time was LT. So LT has to start with some trouble, and problems, and it ends with her being on a stage.

But the heart of it was always that set of interviews, which were the first things we filmed.

Matthew: It was a few months. But we had all of that, and we just had to work out what is the order that it goes in. And it's such a process.

LT: Yeah, so the process itself was quite fun. But in the end, we did show all that. And I think it really needs to feel because, in the end, I felt like this is about a group of women. It's not one particular person's journey. Everyone was having their own journey. And it still goes on, even at the end of the film.

CNS: What's the reception been like? I saw it's been in some festivals.

Matthew: It's played some. It's got a UK premiere happening tomorrow, playing in Sheffield. She's got two screenings in cinemas. One in Shanghai, and one in Beijing, and I've got to do this post-screening today.

CNS: How can people in Shanghai see Shanghai Girls?

Matthew: Yeah, the long answer would be there are two approaches they can take. So, they go to the mini program that the distributor has. They can either choose to set up their own screening, and that can be in any city around the country.

They basically say on the app, Hey, I'd love to do a screening here. I'm thinking of this cinema around this day. And then the distributor contacts that cinema.

So, they get their agreement, and then they say, Okay, so the cinema says, in order to do the screening, you need to sell this many tickets, and there'll be this amount.

And they've been like 30 or 40 RMB. So, it's really affordable for a cinema ticket. And then you just have to... And then the person who set up the screening is sort of the organizer. So, they're responsible for promoting it out to all their friends, their community, getting them to come and say, maybe it's a 50-capacity cinema, and you need to hit 25 tickets sold in order for it to go ahead. Once you've got the go-ahead, the organizer goes to the cinema, collects all the tickets, and hands them out.

If the screening doesn't make it over the mark, they're not going to be charged. But hopefully, it does, and most of them have been. So, yeah.

CNS: Okay, so if you've got a group of people getting together to make it an event.

Matthew: Yes, ones that have been in Shanghai or other places nearby, LT's been able to go to do a Q&A session afterward. But the organizer can do whatever they want. They can have their local singing group there to perform at the end of the film, or they can just have a sharing discussion group.

LT: There were some screenings where women or choir groups organized to have a post-screening singing session together in the cinema. That's quite fun.

Matthew: Alternatively, people can just buy tickets through the Elemeet program or on Taopiaopaio if a screening happens to be happening in their area.

We're working with this distributor, and they specialize in this type of screening. So, they would promote independent films. I mean, it's really cool because it's very grassroots.

It's such a different way of releasing smaller, new content and discovering something.

CNS: Do you guys know what you're doing next?

Matthew: Well, we've got M on the Bund, which just came out. I mean, basically, we've got two films that we're trying to push out at the same time.

LT: So next project, TBD. Musical!

Matthew: Well, you've already been required. Shanghai Girls. I already started looking for writers and people who are connected to the industry in London.

When we say musical, as in like a full-on stage production. Wow. Of this material, you mean?

Matthew: To take Shanghai Girls, not like a direct adaptation, but to take the core kind of concept. A group of women who went to school together in the early '90s in Shanghai. Coming back together in their middle age and sort of reconnecting. That's the kind of bare bones.

LT: Sounds like a good story…

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For English / Chinese audience support for seeing the film, feel free to join the Shanghai Girls group chat here.