Whispers in May

Qihuo, aged 14, recently had her first period, which means she is now eligible to take part in the ‘skirt-changing ritual’, a ceremonial custom in her southern Chinese community that symbolises the transition from girlhood to womanhood. Normally, she would receive such a skirt from her family, but as her parents work far away in the city, she decides to go and buy a skirt herself, together with two close friends, far away on the other side of the mountains.

In her second, partly fictionalised documentary, director Dongnan Chen follows the three girls on their journey through the rugged, majestic mountain landscape, during which they meet a wide variety of people along the way, with whom they exchange eerie legends. But the girls mainly talk about what adult life will bring them and express the hope that, whilst they are still children, they will be allowed to determine their own futures, and that arranged marriages and factory work are still a long way off.