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“We Have More in Common Than We Think”: Mel Sangyi Zhao on Her Student Short Film Showcase Winner Return to Youth
For her California Institute of the Arts MFA thesis film, Mel Sangyi Zhao decided to travel back to her Chinese hometown of Chengdu and cast her mother in the lead role. The resultant film, Return to Youth, follows a retired dancer as she navigates the pressures of misogyny, ageism and a budding romance with a man several decades her junior.
Recently pitched with the prospect of undergoing a vaginal rejuvenation surgery, the elegant Bing (Xiaobing Zhao) laughs off the procedure as preposterous. Only when her cohort of friends begin to seriously discuss their interest does she understand that she, too, is far from immune from the social stigma reserved for women of a certain age who dare assert their sexuality. With the sudden company of a handsome young stranger, Bing begins to satiate a libido that she has ignored for far too long.
Return to Youth is one of five winners of the 2024 Student Short Film Showcase, a collaborative program from The Gotham, Focus Features and JetBlue that is available to stream via Focus Features’s YouTube channel and offered in the air as part of JetBlue’s in-flight entertainment selection.
Zhao responded to interview questions via email, revealing the hometown dialect that became integral to the narrative, the process of writing the central role for her mother and her hope to see older women cast in complex roles across the board.
Read the rest of the interviews with the fifth annual Student Short Film Showcase winners here.
Filmmaker: I’d love to gain insight on your graduate studies at California Institute of the Arts. What made this program stand out to you and what have you gained from the experience?
Zhao: For me, what was really interesting about CalArts is that you could go to one teacher for feedback and they’d tell you one thing, then go to another teacher about the same work, and they’d tell you the exact opposite. There are no grading rubrics—you’re engaging with instructors and peers as fellow artists. That means you’re really required to investigate what you want and learn how to articulate it. At the same time, you’re also trying to understand the human being who’s giving you the critique, just as much as the critique itself.
I think that kind of loose and open environment was one of the factors that pushed me inward and helped me discover my own voice.
Filmmaker: What motivated you to set your film in contemporary China as opposed to California?
Zhao: The film is set in my hometown, Chengdu. It was inspired by both my mother and the city, so it felt only natural to go back and shoot it there. The particular dialect of Chengdu was also a big part of the inspiration—it carries a kind of warmth, humor, and rhythm that I felt was essential to the characters and the world of the film. Maybe to my own demise, I find it hard to fully commit to multiple projects at the same time as a director. At that point, this story was all I could think about—it ran parallel to a lot of conversations I was having with my mother. So I just did everything I could to make it happen.
Filmmaker: What were some of the obstacles and boons of pursuing an international production for your thesis film?
Zhao: The biggest challenge was money. I had to fly back home to shoot, and I also had to navigate all the paperwork to pause my studies at CalArts in compliance with my student visa. This was the first time I had ever shot something back home, and once I got there, I had to quickly adjust to how things are done differently than in L.A.—from crew dynamics to production logistics. It was a steep learning curve, but also deeply rewarding.
Filmmaker: Tell me more about the casting process. You said in an interview that you penned certain roles for certain people you already knew, and that the only actor you cast via auditions was the flirtatious young man. When did you know you found the ideal actor to mesh with these performers you already knew?
Zhao: I wrote the role for my mom, and she ended up playing the lead. So I brought her into the casting process and had her improvise with different actors. During that process, I was watching closely—how she felt, how she reacted, and what kind of dynamic emerged between her and each actor. I was also listening to her thoughts and taking her opinions into account. It was important that whoever we cast could connect with her in a way that felt honest and alive.
Filmmaker: What do you hope your film accomplishes in regards to social stigmas surrounding women’s aging and sexuality? Are there differing public attitudes between China and the U.S. on these topics?
Zhao: I’m not sure what a short film can accomplish socially, per se, but I hope it offers a different perspective on aging and female sexuality. I want us to start seeing older women beyond the roles we often assign to them—like aunties or mothers—which are so often tied to caregiving and assumed to be asexual. I’m not well-informed enough to speak definitively about the differences in public attitudes between China and the U.S., but the humor came through, the emotional core of the film came through. Maybe that kind of universality in a personal story shows that we have more in common than we think.
