Ray Wu: A Global Lens on Everyday Life

Born in Shanghai, China, and growing up in Toronto, Canada, Ray Wu is now pursuing a BA in Film and Mathematics at Columbia University. He previously served on the programming committee of the Toronto International Film Festival before moving to New York for college. He was the editor of the documentary The Kharkiv Files about the initial Russian invasion of Kharkiv and the lives of everyday citizens. He is currently working on the documentary Quyosh about the rapidly westernizing education system of Uzbekistan post the 2016 regime change. At Columbia, he is the Editor-in-Chief of the undergraduate film journal Double Exposure and a producer at the School of International and Public Affairs. He aims to tell stories that are interwoven with the lived experience of everyday life, fictional or real.

“The upcoming documentary Quyosh is a story of change,” says Ray, “The film covers a wide range of communities, comparing and contrasting the different ideologies and attitudes towards the future. Specifically, leveraging our experience and age, we listened to personal tales, national perspectives, and gathered a glimpse of Uzbekistan’s future in the hands of the next generation.”

At nineteen years old, Ray has already accomplished significant feats, and the sky’s the limit on where he can go from here. To gain a deeper understanding of his perspective as a filmmaker and everyday person, I had the privilege of sitting down and interviewing him.

You’ve lived in Shanghai, Toronto, and now New York – not to mention that you are studying film and mathematics – how have those cultural shifts and differing fields of study shaped your perspective as a filmmaker?

The shift from Shanghai to Toronto is the most pronounced. I came to Toronto in eighth grade, and these cultural shifts informed my pursuit of filmmaking. I was exposed to media, largely thanks to my dad and his love for movies, but adapting to the different structures helped me take a more hands-on approach. I also had the privilege to understand early on that there are films made internationally, and I’m not limited to one area or style of filmmaking. As far as mathematics goes, it’s just a welcome relaxation that I enjoy, a different type of thinking and creativity.

Editing The Kharkiv Files must have been emotionally intense. What did that project teach you about responsibility and representation in documentary filmmaking?

A lot. I worked on that during my junior and senior years in high school, and it required a great deal of attention. There was a lot of footage, and sorting through it, I came across challenging images. One significant obstacle I faced was that I didn’t speak Russian or Ukrainian, which made it hard to put a transcript together and translate key phrases to figure out how to assemble this footage. Then, of course, some sequences will stay with me forever, such as a grandfather being loaded into a body bag airing on TV, and then his phone goes off because his daughter saw his dead body on the TV and calls to check on him – it was heartbreaking. Nevertheless, it was a massive step in how I want to tell stories because it was an upfront realization of the human stories around the world and not just experiences my friends and I put together in our backyard.

Quyosh focuses on education, globalization, and generational change in Uzbekistan. What first inspired you to tell this story?

This project is a research and documentary film made by students from Columbia and the University of Toronto. We’ve always been interested in Central Asia, and eventually, we discussed Uzbekistan and the significant change happening in the country. Specifically, we are interested in the topic of education because the new president who has come to power has made radical Westernized changes. We became friends with students from Uzbekistan, who then informed us about their country. At a certain point, we were convinced of a story to tell here because our identity and background gave us a leg up in terms of being personable and eliciting stories untold. We explored “Presidential Schools,” for example, a recent government-created construct that teaches the Cambridge curriculum and is only offered to the top 0.01% of the country. Although that system was inaccessible to most, our approach of living with people, talking to them, and learning about their culture opened intriguing doors across the country.

You describe Quyosh as “a story of change.” How did you capture change cinematically—through editing, pacing, or the way you frame your subjects?

We’re still in the early editing stage, but you’re giving me ideas now. One thing is the juxtaposition of different languages spoken. All young people, even those in the furthest corners of the country, are benefiting from the resources invested in the country to enable the next generation to speak multiple languages. There’s also the integration of new technologies like the internet and social media, which are relatively new there. We also explored the city of Moynaq, which holds the Aral Sea (what used to be one of the world’s largest lakes until the Soviets drained water and performed chemical tests). We attended a festival over the summer, where we met scientists involved in health and environmental research. Yet, only the next day, everyone had left the town. Elsewhere in the country, the very belief, identity, and approach that Uzbekistan takes in regards interacting with the rest of the world is changing quickly. We realized that things move so quickly that even if we were to return next year, we would have to relearn many things again.

You described yourself to me as “aiming to tell stories that are interwoven with the lived experience of everyday life, fictional or real” – can you elaborate? What does “everyday life” mean to you?

This is a conversation you always have with yourself. What it boils down to is that it’s personal taste. What’s important to me is finding stories that resonate with me and seem plausible. I talk to people who, from my perspective, are changing, growing, but for them, it’s just an everyday process. People are always adapting. My own fictional stories are also grounded in some relatable experiences. I probably won’t be making any science fiction movies anytime soon.

How do you approach editing documentaries differently from shooting them – especially in projects that deal with complex political or cultural change?

Firstly, especially because we’re approaching this project with a research mindset as well, we want to make sure we get this stuff right. When we were there, we asked questions in English and had interpreters to help translate our questions into Uzbek or Russian. There are also pieces of interviews in German, French, Tajik, Karakalpak, etc. We had to translate and transcribe from scene to scene, and piece together a narrative that would properly tell these case studies. It’s still early in the process, so we’re still trying to figure things out. However, we’re also gaining valuable experiences in capturing emotional moments, awe-inspiring scenes, and engaging in conversations with experts on important subjects. When devising a narrative throughline, it’s about assembling these different moments together as one.

The film seems to question what “progress” means. What does progress look like to you, both as an artist and as a global citizen?

That’s a philosophical question. “Progress,” to me, in the context of Uzbekistan, is about how things are changing. On a personal note, the experience with time – even though I’ve only been around for nineteen years – means that you see many things change. As someone who travels through countries like China, Canada, the United States, and now Uzbekistan, I can feel a change in the political systems I see happening across the world. One reason I chose Columbia over other production-specific programs is that I like the well-rounded approach of various perspectives, taking different classes (like math), and the core curriculum helps broaden our storytelling perspective and awareness.

What’s next for you after Quyosh? Any other projects on the horizon?

Well… survive the midterms first, obviously. In all seriousness, Quyosh is a long project, and we’ll see where we can take that. After that, there are a few things in the works. We’re always making quick, little, short films with friends here at Columbia. For long-form projects, there’s nothing concrete right now, but I’m talking with a lot of people. Going back to the idea of progress, sometimes a big idea comes about, and you adapt to it. Talking with people about everyday things keeps me thinking and gives me ideas to keep in my back pocket.