HIDDEN LETTERS
2022
Feature Documentary
Directed by Violet Du Feng
Edited by John Farbrother
Producer Violet Du Feng, Mette Cheng Munthe, Sue Kim, Jean Tsien
Executive Producer James Costa, Sally Jo Fifer, Jaeson Ma, Ken Pelletier
Music by Chad Cannon, Leona Lewis
Cinematography by Tiebin Feng, Wei Gao
PBS Independent Lens
For centuries in China, the once-secret written language of Nüshu was calligraphed on folded fans and handkerchiefs as hidden letters so women could share stories and express solidarity in a repressive era when many women were denied literacy. Confronting patriarchy, two modern women find solace in Nüshu, rediscovering connections between traditional Chinese womanhood and contemporary feminism.
2023 Academy Award Shortlist for Best Documentary Feature
IDA Shortlist Best Feature Documentary
Spotlight Award Nominee 2023 Cinema Eye Honors
World Premiere Tribeca Festival 2022
European Premiere BFI London Film Festival 2022
Best Norwegian Documentary Bergen International Film Festival
Grand Prize for Documentary Feature Heartland International Film Festival
Special Jury Award Nordic Docs
Int’l Documentary Grand Jury Prize Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival
Matt Decample Audience Choice Award Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival
Best Documentary Feature Austin Asian American Film Festival
Audience Award Austin Asian American Film Festival
Jury Prize Le Festival International du Film sur l’Art
“I sincerely wish I possessed the eloquence to accurately articulate the beauty, sorrow, and power that resonates within the letters, poems, and songs hallmarking the journey in Hidden Letters. Taking the niche history of a secret language invented between Chinese women, filmmakers Violet Du Feng and Zhao Qing have painted a magnificent portrait of women in China, exponentially magnifying its scope to include women around the world…a masterstroke of poetic cinema…The wonderfully methodic pacing of John Farbrother’s editing is buttressed by Chad Cannon and Leona Lewis’s beautifully rendered (and expertly economical) musical score, which is all the more powerful when overlaid with sung Nüshu lyrics.”
–Film Threat“Hidden Letters is an extraordinary film: masterfully conceived, strategically designed and highly crafted.”
–Documentary MagazineA meditative, finally upbeat pulse-taking of a sisterhood that stretches from an archaic writing form’s earliest days to the theoretically liberated women of China today…elegantly crafted…”
–Variety“You may very well not see a more beautifully realized documentary in 2022 than Violet Du Feng’s masterful Hidden Letters…this magnificently realized, beautifully constructed, and emotionally resonant cinematic wonder.”
–The Independent Critic“Feng did an amazing job capturing the perspectives of the film’s female subjects. The camera captures every microexpression on Simu’s face as she tries to keep smiling through her interactions with her fiancé’s traditional, patriarchal family. It captures all the little moments of sisterhood when the women are together without the intrusion of men; and when men do intrude into Nüshu spaces, it captures the feeling of claustrophobia that all non-men will surely recognize. If there is such a thing as “female gaze” within filmmaking, Feng has captured it.”
–The Austin Chronicle
