Zonglin Li
Navigating Educational Choices and Adaptation among Chinese Immigrant Families in England: A Participatory Documentary Approach
Supervisors: Dr Lucy Brydon and Dr Michael Pigott, University of Warwick
Project Summary
Chinese immigrant families are one of the fastest-growing communities in the UK, yet their stories are almost absent from British screens. Not because their stories are uninteresting, but because the industry has rarely built the relationships or the production models needed to tell them from the inside. This project explores what becomes possible when we stop making films about communities and start making them with them.
Working with 6 to 8 newly arrived Chinese families in England, with children aged 7 to 11 and from different socioeconomic backgrounds, I will produce a feature-length participatory documentary in which families are co-makers rather than subjects. They hold the cameras, make creative decisions, and participate in the final edit. The film will explore how class, race and migration shape the everyday educational experiences of Chinese families navigating British schools, from the dinner table to the school gate to the gap between two cultures.
The finished film and a critical written thesis together form the PhD. The project generates evidence about how race, class and migration shape educational experiences in the UK, feeding into policy references that affect these families’ lives.
The most important answer to the Creative Bridges’ diversity theme is this: the project addresses diversity at the level of how films get made, not just what they are about. It documents what genuine community co-production actually requires, the time, the trust, the ethical complexity, and where it breaks down, and possibly offers the screen industries a practical model for working more inclusively with the communities they have yet to reach.
Bio
I am Zonglin Li, a documentary filmmaker and researcher originally from Shanxi, China, now based in London.
My research brings together documentary filmmaking and academic inquiry, with a long-standing focus on the lives of Chinese immigrant communities. I am particularly interested in what happens when underrepresented communities are given genuine creative control over how their stories are told, and what the screen industries can learn from that process.
I hold an MA in Ethnographic and Documentary Film from University College London, where my dissertation film was a participatory documentary following Chinese LGBTQ migrants in France.
Since graduating, I have worked at an education consultancy serving Chinese immigrant families in London, giving me direct, daily access to the community at the heart of my PhD research. My work has been selected and recognised at festivals including the Golden Tree International Documentary Festival (France), Sheffield DocFest (UK), Open City Documentary Festival (UK), the Shanghai International Film Festival (China), and the Busan International Film Festival (Korea).
Away from my desk, I am a former basketball player who has never quite accepted retirement, an avid skier, and a passionate Arsenal fan. I also have a deep love for travel, and I have travelled to over 30 countries