The care-free moments of childhood before society’s expectations weigh on us are the focus of Dongnan Chen’s second feature film, Whispers in May, which will world premiere on March 15 in the main DOX:Award competition of CPH:DOX, the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festiva .
Described as “a time capsule” that “clings to the last moments of childhood, just before reality takes hold, it follows three Chinese girls on a road trip full of natural beauty, discussions about hopes and expectations, and fleeting moments of tenderness.
Qihuo has a secret. She’s just had her first menstruation. This means she is ready for the “Changing Skirt” ceremony, a traditional coming-of-age ritual, which signifies that she is no longer a child, but “a woman bound to the communal demands of marriage and labor,” according to a film synopsis. “With her parents away as migrant laborers and her grandfather recently passed, Qihuo and her two best friends set out on a road trip to buy a skirt for her rite of passage.”
Chen (Singing in the Wilderness, shorts 14 Paintings and The Trail from Xinjiang) blends raw documentary with an improvised fictional voyage to craft “a world inhabited by the girls that exists beyond social norms.”
Whispers in May was produced by Jia Zhao of Muyi Film, together with Chen’s Tail Bite Tail Films in co-production with Malin Hüber for Her Film in Sweden and Heejung Oh for Seesaw Pictures in South Korea. Luke Brawley’s Indox is handling festivals.
“When I first traveled to Liangshan, I wasn’t planning to make a film, until a local teacher showed some of her students’ writings,” Chen explains. “One line in particular stayed with me: ‘I’ve made many wishes, but none has ever come true.’ Later that day, I met its author, Qihuo. At 14, she was at a point where childhood was starting to slip away. The world was ready to name her – a woman, wife, and migrant worker – before she could choose her own course.”
‘Whispers in May’
Courtesy of Muyi Film/Tail Bite Tail Films
That became an inspiration for Chen. “I wanted us to use the film to create an alternative narrative, a dream that ran parallel to her real life, exploring what she might not have done otherwise,” she recalls. “Together, we embarked on the journey. The film grew from close collaboration and improvisation with the girls, imagining a space where they could simply be in all their unfiltered joys and sorrows, free from judgment, definition, or expectation. They were just kids, navigating life’s complexities, straddling between reality and a tale.”
Highlights producer Zhao: “What moved me in the film is Dongnan’s devotion to capturing that quiet transformation, a delicate space between girlhood and womanhood. She weaves in fleeting, almost ungraspable moments of youth after a girl experiences her first menstruation, a transition that is deeply personal and universal. Whispers in May embodies the courageous vision of a woman director in China, where making independent documentary films is a precarious endeavor. As a European-Chinese producer, I am strongly committed to amplifying such bold, artistically-driven stories across borders.”
Enough said. After all, this is the girls’ story. And THR can now unveil an exclusive trailer for Whispers in May.
Ready to run away with the girls? Cinematically, of course! Maybe you will think about what you’d suggest to them when one of them asks: “Do you want to grow up?” Here are first sights and sounds of Whispers in May.
