An Interview with Ann Hu: Director of Confetti (2021)
Introduction
From skin-crawling psychological thrillers to heart-warming films driven by a social cause, CinemaWorld is spotlighting the diversity of cinematic gems by Asian filmmakers this July.
About Confetti (2021)
Confetti (2021) is a deeply personal story for Chinese director, Ann Hu, as it recounts her own experience as a mother with a daughter with dyslexia who seeks a sense of belonging in a new country.
The film follows a mother-daughter duo, Lan and Mei Mei, from China to America in search for specialised schools that their home country cannot offer, so that young Mei Mei can pursue an education crafted for her learning speciality. Hu’s delicate and refined storytelling in Confetti tugs at the heart-strings, whilst maintaining an honest depiction of dyslexia and its persistent invisibility in society.
Though the film started as a personal project for Hu to tell both her and her daughter’s story, Confetti has propelled a movement greater than the filmmaker herself expected, inspiring hundreds and thousands across the globe with its critical message. Having been screened in schools across the United States, Thailand, London, and at multiple film festivals as well, the film has since raised greater awareness about dyslexia on international grounds, redefining established modes of learning in schools. Starring the popular Chinese actress Zhu Zhu and Oscar-nominated actress Amy Irving, both stun with their powerful and synergetic performances as Lan and Helen respectively.
Inspired by its noble cause, CinemaWorld is now bringing Confetti to our audiences in Asia with a special interview with the film’s director, Ann Hu.
The Interview
The Inspiration Behind Confetti
CinemaWorld: Confetti is a very personal project for you, so what were you trying to convey in the film and how do you hope to have portrayed dyslexia to your audiences?
Ann: I guess the ultimate message is about “it’s okay to be not normal.” I mean who wants to be normal? That’s the message, eventually that the film tried to convey. The reason for this message is that this little girl and her mother, they tried everything they could to make this girl “normal,” I mean, normal meaning to make her have the same kind of reading capacity and writing capacity, like all the other kids or her peers. But what they totally ignored was that she had some special talent, that only she herself carries, and that is unique, and that is rare, but until you really treasure them, they could be taken as nothing or as trash. There is a scene in the film, where there is a lot of confetti flowing into the wind from a trash can… disappearing into clouds or fog. (It represents how), in our lives, we really don’t know how to take care of our gifts, how to recognise that who we are is okay, and that it’s okay to be who you are, and you don’t have to be “normal”. You know, you don’t have to conform to the general population. So, I think that is the message, and however, this message was portrayed through a personal story. In the beginning, while I was making this film and while I was going through the experience, I didn’t think that would be the message that I would get and want to convey, not until the last minute. It is the journey that you go through and in the end, you come to a realisation, I guess, that it is okay to be who you are. Who wants to be normal nowadays? (laughs) So, that’s the message.
CinemaWorld: So you didn’t really have a specific message you wanted to portray when you started working on the film, initially?
Ann: No, actually, I just wanted to share my experience with the general population because what I learned was that 20% of the people … because the statistics in many under-developed/developing countries are not available but based on the generalisation on what data is available in developing countries, 20% is a fair number to start thinking about things. If you have 20% of the population who are dyslexic, at different levels of intensity, it’s a huge issue that people haven’t really got an awareness/understanding about and many lives are wasted and are getting wasted, if this awareness doesn’t spread around. I just wanted to share this experience and tell people what dyslexia is about. I mean, it’s not what people think. Instead of an apple, it’s a pear. I really want to convey that experience, so that people will have some kind of insightful understanding about this. And after the film many audiences from many countries came to me — crying husbands and mothers and wives telling me that if [they] had seen this film before, [they] wouldn’t have divorced because [they] have a kid who was dyslexic, and [they] didn’t know, and [they] blamed each other, and so on and so forth… [A]n audience member came up to me, never cried in his life, a very successful businessperson in his fifties and he cried like a baby. He said, “This was me; I hid my shame for all these years, but I didn’t know what I had.” I feel that was originally what I had hoped for.
CinemaWorld: My next question was going to be about your emotional journey with this, but I think you made it very clear. I think it was almost kind of an overwhelming response, which was unexpected in some sense that so many people could be so in tune with this story. I think that’s really amazing.
Ann: Yeah, it was an experience. It was a really amazing experience that I had never anticipated.
The Film’s Impact and Reception
CinemaWorld: How do you take this overwhelmingly positive response, and how has that pushed you to further this cause of spreading the word about dyslexia?
Ann: Right. I did not anticipate the scale of it and the film had a life of its own after its release. (In fact,) a senator in the New York State rewrote a law to allow students in public schools to take a screening test for dyslexia. An early test is the most powerful tool to really decide what level their learning abilities are at, to check if the kids have a learning disability or learning specialty — it’s called special education. So, in that sense, if you are tested then you will be provided with special support. So, it would help with so many people. And then I went to the UK and I found that… they are much more advanced in special education and they have many more schools than in America but still far behind what is necessary. But awareness is there.
Then we started a movement, an awareness movement, to do a thousand screenings. So, every time when you watch this film, then you would understand… and you would help spread the word. So, with this 1000 Confetti screening campaign, I don’t know how many schools in the US, so many high schools and colleges, including Harvard and Columbia and Yale and all those top schools, plus like Hunter College and many high schools. So, I guess, the film was really quite widespread by itself… then [it] went to England, and they also have many schools signed up and the film was screened at BAFTA and the House of Commons/House of Lords, who actually gave us a gala, to just celebrate and to show support. And then… the film went to Thailand… [and] now Singapore (and the rest of Asia). I’m so happy you’re doing this and I hope… it will reach more people. I mean, for the first time… I got into this humanitarian field, that makes you just feel so inspired and so elevated. It’s different from being a filmmaker and taking films to festivals, it’s totally different, it’s really about helping people now.
CinemaWorld: How has the change from being a filmmaker to a kind of humanitarian and having a social cause behind the work that you do translated into your other filmmaking endeavours?
Ann: Well, I’m the kind of filmmaker that will only make films that I feel very strongly about [and] normally somehow, it’s always derived from my own experience. So, from all these experiences, I was exposed to so many people in so many countries, and I got a very strong feeling that each country and each culture is of their own. Although we try to say, we’ll bridge the West to the East, you know the core culture will never really be mixed up. Like, China is China, Singapore is Singapore. I mean, one place and another place can share many similarities, but their intricate preferences and their [cultures] are just so unique to themselves… So I feel the most comprehensive story a filmmaker can tell is to try to tell as many different stories of different people as possible, yet all within one story. I’m in the process of experiencing many lives and I’m listening to everyone, so I’m still putting together this huge pot of like, everything, and hope something nice will come out. Something that can be more self-explanatory, rather than something you’re trying to force. I think that’s very important.
CinemaWorld: Now, we have another question which goes back to the film itself. I believe this film was set in the early 2000s or 2010s. So, now that Mei Mei has grown up and Lan has learned to embrace her own individuality as well, where do you think they would be in 2024? Like what would they be doing? What career would Mei Mei be pursuing? Where would Lan be?
Ann: You mean how the film will continue? (laughs) Well, I mean I do not know but in reality, my daughter has grown to be a full-scale young lady, and she’s eighteen now, and she graduated high school and she just got accepted by Parsons and so she’s going to major in Fashion Design, which I think fits her talent, and also she’s an influencer, just like the film portrays. She has this super talent with computers and graphics and graphics stuff, and she’s also an influencer at her age, by putting on some clothes and taking some videos (laughs). Yeah, she’s got a huge following. You know, I think she’ll have a life of her own and she will have many struggles, and as far as I’m concerned, you know I’m hands off, I’m having my life. But as for the film, if I make another film, you know like it will be about like my daughter’s struggle because that’s the struggle I witness every day and as a mother, I’m torn when I see she is worried, and I will be very happy when I see that she’s elevated. So, it’s like a very, it’s a lifetime kind of a torture almost, being a mother. You always care too much while they’re growing and while they’re walking away. So, you just have to come to accept it. So, if there’s a film, I don’t know, I know that the fashion industry is brutal, and there are films about the fashion industry. I was once interested in doing a story on that. So maybe my daughter’s schoolwork and her endeavour into the fashion world will let me understand more and if there’s a story there, ha-ha, you know I will tell.
CinemaWorld: What drove you to include the theme about the problems of immigration, with Mei Mei and Lan, travelling from China to the US? Because Confetti could also have just been a story about dyslexia too.
Ann: Well the thing is, I was just writing my story, so from beginning to the end, I didn’t have to fabricate, which is the best part, because while writing other scripts, you have to fictionalise it and you have to look around and look at other people’s stories and you have to really make it up and in mine, you just have to write the way it is. You know, I am an immigrant and today I’m still an immigrant. I came to America 40 years ago but that doesn't mean that I’m not an immigrant. And when my daughter was born, I went back to China because I wanted to raise her in a Chinese-speaking environment and bring her back to New York to attend high school. But I guess, as you saw in the film, the first year of her primary school was a total disaster so I mean, and that was exactly what happened, and I just had to take her out. [When I was writing the script,] I had to think about my experience when I first came to America 40 years ago as an immigrant, my experience finding my way around and trying to get help and all those things, and as a mother, for this girl, and what she had to go through. It was pretty easy to adapt my past into the current, to fabricate a little bit to make up the story for this mother. And also, I do not have dyslexia but a lot of mothers I met, they do. Many times, it’s genetic. That’s why 20% of the population will continue to be 20%. It’s not a disease, it’s a condition and a condition can be dealt with… [it] has pluses and minuses. It has a lot of brilliant strengths, and it also has some difficulties… that normal children will learn (about). And as you know, Churchill and Spielberg and Steve Jobs, Einstein, Edison, they’re all dyslexic. So, I guess, it gives them a way to think out of the box that normal people can’t, so it’s a huge advantage to be celebrated. So, you don’t want to waste this part of your child and you want to help them realise that and at the same time, to cope with what they are a little slow about because they are different. The way we learn, it's having the teacher show something and you learn, but for them it’s from graphics, or by looking at a picture, or by touching something. So, it’s a different way of learning, that’s all, there’s nothing to it, but if you do not know, you would consider yourself stupid or dumb and if you’re constantly feeling dumb or behind your peers, you would feel ashamed, and you’d feel so shut off. So, it’s going to affect your life.
CinemaWorld: I think it needs to be accepting of diverse ways of learning.
Ann: Yes.. to be better informed.
Behind-the-Scenes Insights
CinemaWorld: It’s been many years of hiatus before you started this project and went back to filmmaking. Do you think your directorial style has changed over the years?
Ann: You know, we all, hopefully, we all grow and our taste changes, and our judgement changes, and many things, our preference changes and we learn, right? So, I guess, in my filmmaking this time, I wanted the film to appear to be very simple and try not to use elaborate camera movements or have a very dramatic performance… You try to paint a picture with as little paint as possible, as you can, and still deliver a rich story. I feel that’s the challenge to every artist. It’s not difficult to use many various decorations and (have a) huge scale of actors… with many, exaggerated set-ups, to really tell a story. It’s like, if you can make a nice dish with just water and some fresh vegetables and it tastes wonderful, I think that’s probably more challenging than trying to make sea cucumber or something, you know (laughs).
To keep it simple and stupid, is like the key theory. I strongly believe in that. Less is more.
CinemaWorld: What informed such a directorial style? For yourself you left China at 24, studied business and then went to film school. That’s quite the career shift and you had a successful business career, so what drew you to filmmaking?
Ann: Well, I never anticipated that I would become a filmmaker, until I became a filmmaker. I think throughout my life, I grew up in an environment that I was not exposed to anything about filmmaking. I grew up watching very few films available in China at the time, but I was fascinated by them. But then of course coming to America, to go through a stage of survival, going through schools and going through all sorts of jobs, and eventually to become a professional businessperson after going to business school, all that was a huge struggle and many people would think that that’s already plenty and that that’s it. But I just realised somehow that I didn’t go through all these ups and downs, Cultural Revolution, family separation, and coming to the States and being all alone… [doing] all kinds of tough jobs, like waiting tables and house-cleaning, full-time working and full-time schooling to support myself and pay tuition, that was in the early 80s. I was among some of the very first few students coming out of China in 1979, so I didn’t go through all these ups and downs just to become a businessperson. Nothing wrong about being a businessperson, but I just don't feel like I’m just a money machine, you know, a money tree to produce profit. There has to be something else. Later on, I ran into a Chinese film director and somehow we spoke and I think that opened a door for me. I went to film school and I became a filmmaker and after that… every step was very, very, very challenging and it was extremely difficult. And if I were to put all the ups and downs before filmmaking together, this (filmmaking) is still the toughest (laughs). But you know, I made a couple of films and then I had my daughter. I feel that now life is more than making films.
CinemaWorld: Ever-evolving.
Ann: Yeah, I thought that life is about being a mother for 10 years and I didn’t want to miss a second of that. It’s just so full, so rewarding, that I thought filmmaking could wait. Also, I feel like you make a film when you have things to say and it’s something worth saying. You should take time to think about that. I see many fantastic filmmakers that are very prolific, they make films every year about stories of this and that, and many are fantastic filmmakers and I truly admire them for being so fast with their craft, but I mean, you look at the stories and I don’t see why you make these kinds of stories — what do they tell you? Do you really learn anything? Do you feel anything? Do you gain anything? So, I mean, for all that effort and all that resources, and it’s a lot of capital… So I mean, what does it offer, I do not know. I am humble, I don’t want to bring up anything I don’t feel like I can offer something, at least. (laughs)
CinemaWorld: As a veteran in the filmmaking space, you’ve been able to navigate and live with this mix, between Hollywood and the Chinese filmmaking scene. For our budding filmmakers out there, how would you advise them to make a film that travels beyond wherever they’re situated, so they can work seamlessly between both cultures?
Ann: Well, I can only say one thing. Don’t try to be something you’re not. Because that will show and you won’t be able to do it anyway. So basically, make films that you are. If you are in an environment and you understand your people, do that. But if you happen to have the opportunity to live a few years overseas or in another culture, and have that culture in you — not just 3 weeks of tourist-y kind of understanding, I’m talking about an in depth understanding, at least 5 years or 10 years — you understand a culture, and you reflect that culture’s insight. Like people say and I believe, if you want to paint a flower, you should look at a flower for 3 years until you become that flower, but not just oh I have a flower in my mind, I know what flowers are, so I’m just doing it, because it’s all synthetic. And then you get a synthetic film, which doesn’t reflect reality. The real stories always touch people and if it’s real emotion, a real story and… it comes from an authentic place, it will always touch people. So, if you want to reach a broader audience, then you need to be able to speak their language and understand them. And that comes from the time you invest and spend with them and in there (the community).
I made a short film while I was in the NYU film school. That film was half shot in China and half shot in New York. I did the first half in China and it was so well done. Everyone said it was great and so I got carried away and I thought, ok I’m going to add another 30 minutes of film that continues the story in China that would happen in New York. So, I will make this a feature film, instead of a 50-minute short film, I’ll make it an 80-minute feature film. So, my first film would be a feature film. But it’s not coming from an authentic place, I just wanted to make it big and you know, to achieve, instead of to experience. So once the American part of the film was done and I put it together and showed everyone, they were like “nahhh, not good.” But when I took off the American part, it looked very good. Meaning, and that was 1990, I had already lived in America for 10 years. With the American part of the film, I thought I already understand English, I understand people, it should appear real… (But) you realise, no, my understanding about American culture is still so limited, and my experience working with American actors was none, so their performance seemed stiff and not real. So, when you cut them together, they are like reciting lines and it looks very unappealing to say the least. So, I cut it off and it’s still a short. When I shot in China, everything seemed so authentic. It was in the village, there were some farmers, some kids and high school students... I mean it was beautiful and it was real, and it was authentic. And the American part was not. So, I think it’s important to understand the culture around you.
I think in Singapore, Singapore is an international city, you are exposed to multiple cultures, and you have the advantage to really reflect upon many cultures. That should be in you. Depends on your work, depends on where you live, on your working environment. If you work as an interpreter, you will know many tourists, so you can expand.
CinemaWorld: You mentioned a lot of your writing and a lot of your work comes from a place of authenticity and it’s your own experiences, but were there times when you faced writer’s block and are there any interesting ways that you tap into your creative headspace?
Ann: Well, you have to look around and you have to observe, and it all comes from your experience and your observations. And also, when you talk with good writers, they bring to the table a lot and they will come up with good plots as well. I think the best time, when you collaborate, you talk about one thing and that stimulates and inspires the other person to say something else, and that keeps going back and forth and something great will happen. So, those moments are the defining moments in creation, when you do creative work, because many times the ideas you bring to the table, and when you are talking to the right people, you know you can help each other to get somewhere. Like accidents, you know, you can’t really make it up at all, not until you really start that brainstorming process.
CinemaWorld: So, do you have any other creative projects coming up, or film projects coming up?
Ann: Yeah, I have quite a few. But I’m not telling you it. (laughs)
CinemaWorld: We’ll look forward to it then!
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Watch Confetti (2021)
As we continue to expand our catalogue of emblematic, international films on CinemaWorld, we look to introduce more Asian films like Confetti that give voice to the diverse cultures and stories in Asia.
If you would like to partake in the film's movement to raise awareness about dyslexia, take a look at its 1000 Film Screenings Movement (scroll down on the page to register for a screening of Confetti for your event).
Don’t forget to check out our exclusive interview with Mayu Nakamura, the director behind the Japanese gritty psychological-thriller Intimate Stranger (2021) here.
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