The Private Life of Fenfen

Fenfen is a remarkable Chinese woman born in a small rural village in 1983. She has been keeping a video diary since 2007, and in this film we follow three years of her life. Fenfen talks about the boy she has met, and who her parents have rejected because he is younger and lives far away. Her family has found what they consider a more suitable candidate for marriage: he lives nearer by and is also older and wealthier. There’s not a hint of her holding back as this young woman discusses her feelings and dilemmas, and she films the people in her life, such as her first husband, and her new boyfriend Zhong. But what makes this film highly unusual is that in addition to the video diary itself, we see viewers reacting to scenes from the film screened on TVs in a restaurant, a hair salon and other places. Not everyone is particularly interested, but some episodes do trigger responses from their audiences, such as the one in which Fenfen reveals why she was hospitalized. The film is a unique window into the internal life of a young Chinese woman and of the people that fill her life, and judge it.