In a movie business more and more formed by speedy technological change, few filmmakers are navigating as many intersecting worlds as Wencai. Working throughout industrial manufacturing, documentary filmmaking, and AI-driven visible storytelling, her follow displays a broader shift in how cinema is being redefined right now.
Her work strikes fluidly between business and analysis, image-making and language, expertise and human expertise. Relatively than separating these domains, she approaches them as a part of a single evolving follow.
At a time when filmmaking is changing into extra accessible via digital instruments and AI techniques, her work raises a elementary query: if anybody can generate photos, what nonetheless defines the position of a filmmaker?
Q：What have you ever been engaged on just lately, and are there any initiatives that really feel significantly thrilling or consultant of your present route?
A：Not too long ago, I’ve been main the event and narrative route of a brand new AI-driven live-action movie venture in collaboration with Wanda Footage. The venture explores how AI might be built-in into the filmmaking pipeline—from story improvement to visible manufacturing—and displays the route my work is shifting towards. It’s a part of a broader business shift, as main studios more and more experiment with AI to reshape conventional manufacturing processes.
Q：Might you elaborate on what feels completely different about this course of in comparison with conventional filmmaking?
A：On one hand, it considerably reduces sure manufacturing prices. However extra importantly, it’s increasing what filmmaking can truly be—how tales are created, visualized, and even carried out. For me, it’s been a really hands-on course of. A typical day would possibly contain working with a movie manufacturing group within the morning, after which sitting down with AI engineers within the afternoon, making an attempt to determine methods to higher combine creative choices with technological techniques. It’s nonetheless a really new house, however that’s precisely what makes it fascinating. When the technical limitations to filmmaking are progressively disappearing, it actually forces you to rethink what the position of a filmmaker—or a director—even means right now.
Q：So what do you suppose—do you’re feeling the position of a director nonetheless holds the identical that means right now?
A：I feel it nonetheless holds that means—however in a really completely different approach. When picture manufacturing is not restricted by funds, time, or bodily constraints, for instance, each immediate can generate a number of visually spectacular photos, the query is not methods to produce a picture, however how to decide on between them—why this one, and never the opposite. And that’s the place the position of a director turns into much more vital.
As a result of that call doesn’t come from the instrument. It comes from the individual—from what you’ve learn, what you’ve watched, the way you perceive the world, and finally, your style. So whereas the brink for making photos is perhaps getting decrease, the expectations for guiding are literally getting greater. I feel that’s actually the place the that means of directing lies now—not in controlling manufacturing, however in making selections with intention, perspective, and judgment, and caring extra about human expertise.
Q: Might you give an instance of the way you perceive and categorical human expertise in your work?
A：One instance that stayed with me was throughout Off Stage, the place I labored as a script supervisor and modifying assistant. There’s a scene the place a mom comes again after being away, nervous her youngsters can’t maintain themselves. However when she arrives, the whole lot is so as—and as a substitute of reduction, she feels a delicate disappointment. So the youngsters fake. They mess up the kitchen, damage garments, appearing as in the event that they nonetheless want her. She complains, however takes care of them, even instinctively buzzing. To me, that feels very true—particularly for a middle-aged East Asian mom. It’s quiet, however emotionally advanced.
I feel that type of remark is what makes a movie resonate. It’s not one thing you assemble, however one thing you acknowledge. It’s additionally what led the movie to obtain recognition at main nationwide awards, together with nominations at each the Beijing Worldwide Movie Competition’s Tiantan Award and the Golden Rooster Awards, and the lead actress He Saifei received Greatest Actress for this position. However for me, what stays are these small, nearly invisible moments. These are the moments I preserve looking for in my very own work.
Q: Following up on that, your movie So Lengthy, Mother has acquired worldwide recognition, and lots of viewers describe it as delicate and deeply shifting. Do you suppose that connects to what you talked about about human expertise? And is there something from that venture you’d wish to share?
A：Sure, I feel it’s intently associated.
In that movie, I used to be actually targeted on capturing delicate emotional particulars between girls. Throughout the course of, I wasn’t certain if these moments could be observed—however from the viewers suggestions, they had been very clearly felt. Throughout completely different cultures and languages, that type of emotion is definitely fairly common.
The movie introduced me lots of recognition, however what stayed with me extra was the method itself. We had been capturing in a really small, previous dry-cleaning store, with restricted electrical energy, minimal tools, and strict constraints in the course of the pandemic. So we needed to cut back the whole lot—crew, lighting, house—and actually rethink methods to use what we had. That pushed me to discover house in another way. I feel a director’s capability to take advantage of what they’ve is extremely vital. For instance, utilizing mirrors, reflections, and off-screen house—not simply as bodily parts, however as a part of the visible language.
At one level, I even felt this must be taught in movie college—methods to work with restricted sources. As a result of for many younger filmmakers, constraints—whether or not funds or time—are inevitable. So in a approach, studying methods to “dance inside these constraints” turns into a elementary a part of directing.
Q:I do know you spent about six years working as a industrial director in Beijing, collaborating with a variety of international manufacturers—do these sorts of constraints really feel completely different or simpler to work with in that context?
A：I wouldn’t say it’s simpler—simply completely different. Business initiatives might appear to have bigger budgets, however additionally they include extra layers—extra issues that require sources, and extra advanced dynamics to navigate. So constraints by no means actually disappear; they simply take completely different types. That’s why I really feel that is one thing administrators ought to actively be taught—methods to work inside constraints, as a result of they’re all the time there.
I keep in mind capturing a automobile industrial the place we had entry to a few of the finest cameras and lighting setups on the time. However in the long run, probably the most highly effective shot got here from a second we captured nearly casually—proper earlier than leaving the Gobi Desert at sundown. That have stayed with me. It made me notice that I don’t actually consider in counting on funds or expertise alone. Generally having extra individuals or extra sources doesn’t essentially result in higher outcomes. Ultimately, it all the time comes all the way down to the way you select to see and use what you may have.
Q: The place does that sense of judgment come from?
A：It comes from a mix of various issues. I used to be educated on the Beijing Movie Academy, which gave me a stable basis in cinematic language. On the identical time, I grew up round conventional Chinese language portray and calligraphy, which formed how I take into consideration composition and visible rhythm. Then there’s the whole lot you take in over time—movies you’ve watched, books you’ve learn, and the way in which you observe individuals and the world. All of that progressively types your style.
Q: Might you inform us about your workshop at Cornell in April? I perceive it targeted on AI filmmaking, nevertheless it additionally touched on Tibetan language—how did your work as a director grow to be linked to Tibetan instructing?
A：It truly began from a private curiosity within the philosophical and mental traditions inside Tibetan Buddhism. I started studying Tibetan as a option to have interaction extra straight with these texts. Extra just lately, whereas engaged on AI-driven movie initiatives, I noticed that Tibetan continues to be very underrepresented in present media and AI techniques. There’s merely not sufficient information or content material for these instruments to correctly assist the language. So I attempt to convey collectively my background in Tibetan language and visible manufacturing to, in some small approach, assist cut back that structural inequality.
Q: What do you imply by “inequality”?
A：In a broad sense, AI is usually seen as one thing that may cut back inequality in entry to info. Irrespective of the place you might be, you’ll be able to probably entry extra content material and information. However that primarily applies to audio system of high-resource languages—languages which are already broadly used, constantly produced, and consistently fed into these techniques. The extra information they generate, the higher the techniques grow to be. It creates a type of optimistic suggestions loop.
For much less frequent languages, it’s the alternative. There merely isn’t sufficient information—whether or not linguistic or visible—for these techniques to be taught from. In consequence, the instruments stay restricted, which in flip discourages additional use and manufacturing. Over time, this could reinforce and even widen the hole. That’s the place I see my work becoming in.
I’ve been working with establishments just like the College of Michigan and Columbia College on video manufacturing for superior Tibetan language applications. These are long-term initiatives targeted on constructing structured studying supplies. On one hand, I take advantage of AI instruments to create simpler visible content material for learners. On the opposite, that course of additionally contributes extra information that may assist these techniques enhance over time.
On the workshop at Cornell College in April, I shared a few of these approaches—how filmmaking strategies, like directing and modifying, might be tailored to assist language studying and make this type of content material extra accessible to others.
Q: Trying throughout your work—from fiction filmmaking to AI-driven filmmaking—what are you planning to discover subsequent?
A：In a single route, I’ll proceed working in industrial filmmaking. I do know some youthful administrators have a tendency to withstand industrial work, however in actuality, it calls for a really full ability set. It’s not nearly creative imaginative and prescient, but additionally about main giant groups, managing advanced manufacturing techniques, and delivering clear outcomes. It’s one thing I’m comfy with, and in addition a sensible approach I assist my work. On the identical time, I’m creating a documentary venture targeted on Chinese language immigrant employees within the post-pandemic United States.
Q: Might you inform us extra about that venture?
A：You’ll have observed that, particularly these years, there are nail salons all over the place—and greater than 70% of them are owned, funded, or operated by Chinese language immigrants. For some, these companies have created actual upward mobility—they’ve constructed steady lives, even vital wealth, and created jobs for others. For others, particularly those that arrived underneath harder circumstances, it’s nonetheless a strategy of studying, adapting, and discovering a spot to face.
For a very long time, Chinese language immigrant narratives had been usually related to eating places or laundromats. However nail salons have, in some ways, grow to be a brand new entry level for a distinct technology. What pursuits me is not only the business itself, however the vary of lives behind it—how these particular person tales replicate broader questions of migration, labor, identification, and survival within the present social panorama. Proper now, I’m following a number of people over time, making an attempt to seize these tales from inside.
Q: You’ve clearly developed a robust command of AI-driven filmmaking, and your work in that house could be very compelling. Why proceed making documentaries?
A：For me, it comes all the way down to respecting the world. AI extends what we are able to do—it expands our technical attain. In a approach, it’s like having an extended arm, permitting you to achieve issues that had been as soon as out of grasp. However for cinema, that’s not sufficient. Movie, to me, is all the time a mirrored image of life. What we see on display is a distilled model of actual human expertise.
The extra superior the expertise turns into, the simpler it’s to create the whole lot in isolation. And due to that, I really feel it’s much more vital for a director to maneuver in the other way—to exit, to watch, to remain near actual individuals and actual conditions. It’s a must to stay a type of wanderer—consistently wanting, listening, and studying from the world. As a result of in the long run, what we convey again into movie is not only photos, however human expertise.
Throughout her work—from AI-driven filmmaking to documentary follow and language-based media—a constant thread emerges: a dedication to grounding photos in lived expertise. As new applied sciences reshape how movies are made, her strategy means that the way forward for cinema lies not in instruments alone, however within the views that information them.
In an age of visible abundance, this factors towards a distinct type of authorship—one rooted in consideration, choice, and that means. Whether or not in industrial manufacturing, documentary work, or language-focused initiatives, her follow displays a broader intention: to develop not solely how tales are made, however how they’re understood throughout cultures.
Her work has acquired recognition via main awards, worldwide screenings, and cross-sector collaborations. However past that recognition, what defines her follow is a constant give attention to human expertise—and a perception that storytelling, at its finest, can nonetheless bridge distances between individuals, cultures, and methods of seeing the world.