A Spanish Director Unveils the Truth About Chinese Mother-Daughter Relationships — An Interview with Arantxa Echevarría

Before I even got the chance to interview Spanish director Arantxa Echevarría, Xiaohongshu’s algorithm had already pushed her work onto my screen—a short commentary video about her film Chinas. The “selling point” the commentator highlighted was: this film captures “the original family trauma of East Asian children.”

The clip selected one of the most emotionally charged scenes in the movie: a daughter eating while scrolling on her phone, sparking a fierce parent-child confrontation. The parents accuse the child of being ungrateful, while the daughter despairs that her parents have never truly considered her feelings. This suffocating cycle of futile communication struck a precise chord with young audiences’ criticism of their “original families.” That was when the film left a deep impression on me: how could a non-Chinese director so accurately depict the generational divide within Chinese families?