Nanfu Wang is an Emmy-nominated and Peabody-winning filmmaker based in New York City. Wang’s feature debut, “Hooligan Sparrow,” premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. It was shortlisted for the 2017 Academy Award for best documentary feature and earned a Peabody Award, an Independent Spirit Award, and two Emmy nominations. Her second feature documentary, “I Am Another You,” premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival in 2017.

“One Child Nation” premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival on January 26. The film is co-directed by Jialing Zhang.

W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.

NW: “One Child Nation” is a film about social engineering versus individuality. It’s about how a nation manipulated every individual to give up their own identity and their own rights to follow the national agenda.

W&H: What drew you to this story?

NW: Becoming a mother affected the way I see things. Growing up in China, I didn’t question the one-child policy because it had become part of normal life. But after I had my first child, I felt empathy towards mothers and children whose lives were affected by the policy. It motivated me to explore what the policy meant to people, and then each of the people I spoke to revealed information and emotions that affected my perspective and propelled me to talk to the next person.

W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?

NW: I hope people leaving the theater will become aware of and remember what happened in China during the one-child policy. I also hope people outside of China can think about their own situation and their own history.

Propaganda doesn’t only happen in China. It takes savviness to recognize what is propaganda around us, and more often than not, it’s more pervasive in our lives than we think it is.

W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?

NW: During the production, we faced the challenge of showing a complete picture of the one-child policy but not turning the film into a survey. The scale of the story is massive. It’s a national policy that affected millions of families and had lasting consequences for generations of people. Every Chinese person’s life is, to some extent, affected by the policy and has a story to tell. We had to be very selective in terms of choosing who to film and which characters to include in the final film.

During post-production, the challenge was to balance and transition from my personal story of myself and my family to other people’s stories. There was a lot of trial and error in the editing process to achieve a seamless transition from my village to the entire country, from my family to millions of other families.

W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made. 

NW: We got our funding through a combination of grants, TV broadcasters, and investment.

W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?

NW: Growing up in a rural village in China, I experienced poverty, a lack of educational opportunities, and the loss of my father at a very young age. All of these experiences made me want to tell stories that could be meaningful and create change.

W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?

NW: Worst advice: As a director, you shouldn’t edit your own film because you’re too close to the material.

The best advice is from my dad. When I was six, my father told me a story called “Little Horse Crossing the River.” The story goes:

Little Horse and her mother lived by a river. One day, Mother Horse asked Little Horse to send a bag of food to the village on the other side of the river.

When Little Horse reached the river, she saw that there was no bridge. Little Horse asked a buffalo at the riverside, “Can you please tell me if it’s safe to swim across the river?”

The buffalo said, “Why not? The water is just shallow enough to reach my lower leg. I don’t see any problem with you crossing it.” So, Little Horse decided to cross.

As Little Horse walked toward the water, a squirrel yelled from a tree, “Wait! Don’t cross! You’ll drown if you do! A friend of mine fell into the river and died just yesterday!”

Little Horse couldn’t decide what to do. She went back home to her mother for advice. “I could not cross the river,” Little Horse told her mother. “The buffalo told me it was shallow, but the little squirrel said that it was too deep.”

“Well, Little Horse,” said her mother. “They can’t both be right, can they? Sometimes you have to find the answer yourself.”

Little Horse went back to the river. She thought about her mother’s words. As she looked at the water, the squirrel shouted to her again, “It’s too deep! Don’t you want to live?”

“Don’t listen to him!” shouted the buffalo. “You’ll barely even get wet.”

Little Horse looked at the buffalo, then at the squirrel, and then she looked at her reflection in the river. “I will have to find out for myself.”

She walked slowly into the water. It was not as shallow as the buffalo said, but the squirrel was wrong, too: the water came up to her neck. As she stepped up onto the other bank of the river, she looked back at the other side, shook herself dry, and went on her way.

“You will face situations like this in your life very often,” my father said. “People will give you advice. They will tell you what they think is right and wrong. But every opinion they give is based on their own experience. You need to think independently and critically. Don’t take what others say for the truth.”

My father died when I was 12 Growing up, I agonized over every important life decision. I consulted people I trusted, and I got answers that conflicted with each other. Each time, I thought about the Little Horse story my dad told me. It gave me the courage to make my own decisions and choose my own path in life.

W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?

NW: Trust yourself.

W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.

NW: There are many I like at different times in my life and career, but I don’t have a favorite one.

W&H: It’s been a little over a year since the reckoning in Hollywood and the global film industry began. What differences have you noticed since the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements launched?

NW: More women are brave enough to speak up, but the stakes for women who speak up are as high as they’ve ever been.