British- Chinese Xiaolu Guo is a renaissance woman of sorts – she’s a writer in two languages (Chinese and English), as well as a filmmaker. She pens novels and short stories, and produces and directs documentaries and fiction features. Perhaps best known for her runaway success, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers
AGI: You were recently listed as one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists. What does this mean to you?
Guo: We are only writers, not show business actors. So yes it is very positive to be on the list, but on the other hand you know what is the reality – to be a literature writer means one must endure the solitary nature of the life style, to go beyond the surface of all the chat and talks. Work is work.
You are now involved in the 2013 Chinese Visual Festival as a jury member for the film section. How did that come about, and what do you think about the current state of Chinese visual arts in the world?
It is a very nice showcase for Chinese indie films. One of my doc films was showing in the festival last year and it was very well received. This year I am one of the jury members; I think it is very interesting to swap roles to see other filmmakers’ work from a different position. Chinese visual arts in general are very strong and rather solid, not some superficial or meaningless stuff one might often encounter in the modern world. I think they are worthy to promote.
As a jury member, do you have any criteria on which you base your decisions about the quality of a film?
I tend to look at a film from two angles. First the aesthetic quality, whether the filmmaker has his own visual language, as well as the narrative ability. Another angle is the social content quality – how the work relates to our society and humanity, as well as the emotional impact.
Your most recent film as a director, UFO IN HER EYES (released on DVD earlier this year), was based on one of your own novels. Why did you decide to make your novel into a film and what were the challenges in doing this?
That story is a cinema[tic] story. I wrote the story as a future film project which I thought I might be able to make one day. But after I published the novel, I had to re-think about the script and to re-compose the characters and dramatic arc as I found cinema narrative is totally something else. It has to be scene based, montage based, not language based format. So in fact, I spent a much longer time on the film script than I did for the novel.
You have written novels in English and in Chinese. You have also directed non-fiction films (documentaries) and fiction films. What attracts you to working in all of these different mediums and what are the pros and cons of each one?
I find it’s more natural doing work with different formats. It is like living one’s life with many identities. For example, one will live as a mother and at the same time as a lover and as a daughter as well as a company manager and something else. Don’t you think? In our modern days, one can use different art forms to express, in my case, I use literature and cinema. Sometimes, the limitation of literature can be adjusted in the cinema, and vice versa…but fundamentally, I am a story teller, or a fabulist, if you want.
It has been rumoured that you have a new novel coming out later this year. Can you tell us anything more about it?
It will perhaps be my most representative work so far. You will have to wait to find out!
Interview by Tim Holm
