Interview with Yuxuan Ethan Wu (Death Education)

Twenty-six-year old filmmaker and photographer Yuxuan Ethan Wu was born in Changsha, in China, and has lived in Beijing, Boston, New York, and Palo Alto. Since graduating from the Emerson College (in Boston), he has worked on different films as assistant director and cinematographer. His debut directorial feature Death Education premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. The short documentary follows a Chinese teacher who offers his students an immersive death experience – a film that “braves the subject material experientially and with an unpretentious philosophical attentiveness”.

Joshua Polanski – You are a very young director. In fact, I think you are the youngest director that I’ve ever interviewed. Why is mortality on your mind at such a young age?

Yuxuan Ethan Wu – [laughs] For some reason, my parents sent me to school a year earlier than most of my peers, so growing up, I was always the youngest (and often shortest) kid in the room. In a way, that made me stop thinking about age when interacting with others – it gave me a bit of naive confidence when I first started working as a documentary director. I never really felt nervous or intimidated when talking to or interviewing people.

I don’t know how common this is for kids, but as a child, I often feared something happened to my parents or family. Looking back, my earliest memory of this was in primary school – waking up in the middle of the night, wide awake from a nightmare where my grandpa had passed away. I’m very fortunate that all my close family members are still with me today, but I still fear… that day.

JP – The film begins in a crematorium as a corpse is being turned to ashes. What was it like shooting in a place as serious and somber as a crematorium? How do you maintain respect while the camera is running?

YEW – I think talking about respect in this context means asking myself why am I filming these images in the first place? Am I using these visuals purely for shock value or sensationalism? Intent matters.

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