‘Montreal, My Beautiful (Montréal, Ma Belle)’ is a 2026 film starring Joan Chen as Feng Xia, a Chinese-Canadian woman who, after years of dutiful marriage to her husband, embarks on a love affair with a younger woman. It’s a beautiful story, and you can read more about it in our 4-star review.

This week I had the pleasure of sitting down with the films writer and director, Xiaodan He, to speak about the film

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Matthew Simpson:  Xiaodan, thank you for joining me today. It’s a pleasure to talk to you about your movie!

Xiaodan He: Thank you for having me

Matthew:  Could you talk a little bit about the initial inspiration for the film?

Xiaodan: Absolutely! After my first fiction film, A Touch of Spring, I really had a desire, even a need, to make a movie basically in Montreal. Because I have been living here for more than 20 years, as a filmmaker, I think this naturally pushed me and gave me the desire to tell a story here.  I really considered Montreal as my second hometown. I am from China originally, so I’m an immigrant, and a very typical first-generation immigrant here in Montreal, so I wanted to tell a story about an immigrant, and, more specifically, a woman immigrant. And then when I look for the story I told myself this time, I really want to explore the life experience and the inside world of a middle-aged, Chinese woman, immigrant, and the reality of homosexuality, in this community. 

So I thought a Chinese woman, and a lesbian, but a repressed lesbian, and because she’s a middle-aged Chinese woman, then absolutely she is not like younger Chinese girls and women who grew up in Montreal who have a very open mind and modern mentality. This woman grew up in China, and then she moved to Montreal 14 years ago. So in this way, I can understand very well her inner conflict. It means she’s on the very traditional side as a Chinese woman, but also she has the influence absolutely of Montreal, and in Western culture. I believed this. This will be a very interesting angle from which to tell an immigrant story, to combine the two sides together: the Chinese middle-aged lesbian story, combined with immigrant life here in Montreal.

Matthew: You moved to Montreal from China as well. How muchof you is in Feng Xia, and how much of her is in you? How much of an insert is she?

Xiaodan: I think this is a big part of the immigrant life, and it comes from my personal experience, but also from my learning and observations of other Chinese immigrant women, men, and families, and even other families from other nationalities. As immigrants, I think we share a lot of common feelings, common situations and common dilemmas. So, for me this part of Feng Xia is absolutely based on my own experience.

Matthew:  I’d like to come back to something after this, but one thing I found really fascinating –and I’ve never seen it explored in quite the same way in a film before– was the fact that what really set her free in the story seemed to at least start with the language classes. Did you find that that was true for yourself as well? Is that also from your experience?

Xiaodan: Oh, that came totally from my own experience. When I arrived in Montreal, I needed to improve my French, so I went to the French classes given by the government. I really liked that experience, and I should say, my teacher was the same as the teacher in the film. She gave us so much good energy, inspiration and was very welcoming. I was touched by her motivation to protect her culture, French Canadian culture. I’m from a minority China, and my father is from a minority group, so I’m not the typical majority Chinese, so I know as a minority group how sensitive and how important it is to be able to protect your own culture, so I was touched by her very sincere motivation to inspire us. French is a very difficult language, and she found a lot of ways to encourage us to learn French. In that class, I observed students from all over the world, from other countries and different ages, how they would like to start a new life here, and you can for sure the same here in Montreal, so I thought it’s very cute to start her journey from there, because she was pushed to go to the class.

Matthew:  That’s kind of wonderful, actually, something I’ve personally never had to deal with. So I found it really fascinating.

Xiaodan: Oh, thank you very much. I’m happy Matt, because this scene, I think, it’s very, very typical Quebec scene for a lot of immigrants. If you talk to other immigrants, a lot of them –most of them–, when they started their life here, they went to the French class because they could receive some money to support their daily life here, and that money is quite important for us, because in the very beginning, we cannot find a job without French. So attending the class is one way to get some money.

Matthew: I’d like to circle back on something. You mentioned that you purposefully chose to make Feng Xia a middle-aged woman, and that this way she wasn’t fresh-faced and open-minded at the start of the story, but I would say I noticed that the daughter in the film certainly is. How did you come to explore that sort of relationship between the young, newer, more open person versus the more closed-off person?

Xiaodan: Yeah, for me again, she’s my opposite. I have no kids but I have so many friends in the middle age or even older and they have kids who are now the second generation. They came here at a very young age or they were born here. So I see the difference, the gap between the two generations. The kids are very honest, the impression I got mostly is that they’re very, yes, they’re very honest with their parents. They’re not like the kids in China that I know, or myself. I will never talk that way with my parents, it’s not possible! It’s so rude, right? 

In this movie, we can see that in Joy, she’s so frank and she just wants to push her mother to improve herself. A lot of Chinese kids here, I’ve found that they are much more independent and much more frank, and also they are not afraid to confront, let’s say, the negative side of Chinese culture. A lot, most of the Chinese I know they’re afraid to lose face. I grew up in this culture, and I know how much the face means to a Chinese, especially to a Chinese man. So the daughter, even though she grows up here and has her life here, she never forget she’s Chinese at the same time, and she knows the struggle of her parents. 

So I like this very much, this complicity between them, the kids and the parents. They love each other for sure, and maybe it’s stronger than the relationship would be in China, because it’s easier.  Here, they have to face more challenges, and they must adapt to and accept each other’s limits and differences.  I’ve heard some parents say they sometimes feel shame in front of their kids. They feel they are not an independent person here because they cannot speak English or French well. They have to depend on their kids, and they feel sad about that. They know it, and the kids know it, and sometimes the kids just lose their patience, especially teenagers like Joy. She is starting her life; she has no time to always take care of her parents to translate for them. I brought this to the screen because this is another reality I really care about, and I really feel is very special. There is conflict for sure, and but in the end, I think their bond is quite strong, Especially this is where is Joy at the key moment: she always stands by her mother, because she understands her mother.

Matthew: It’s wonderfully portrayed in the film, I really enjoyed that whole part of it.

Moving on just a little bit to the screenplay and the cast I understand the screenplay was in in the works for quite a while, so how early did you have the idea of how the story was going to ebb and flow compared to when it was released?

Xiaodan: Yeah, quite early. When I was editing my first feature, A Touch of Spring, I had already started looking for the story, because, as you know, as an independent filmmaker you cannot just wait until one film is totally out. You have to look for another story, and so we have to overlap our work a little bit, our creative procedure, let’s say, so if I count like that, it means five years ago. 

This very concrete idea came to me, I think, five years ago, yeah. And then, as you know, in Canada, if you want to do a movie, you have to get a grant, and in Quebec, I need to get the grant from Quebec and the federal government. That was a very long process, as was writing. So five years!

Matthew: You started in about 2020. How much has the idea changed since then? Or how much did the basic idea of the script, or any major character development, or anything like that, change from the initial idea to what we now see on the screen?

Xiaodan:  I like this question very much. The core of the story never changed and was quite clear from the very beginning. I know that I would like to tell a story about a middle-aged, repressed Chinese lesbian based in Montreal as an immigrant with her family. So this was quite clear to me from the very beginning, and that actually gave me the kind of confidence to pass through the whole process, because it’s not easy when you get to the requests from the institution to change the script, but I knew the core was clear to me.  I really believe, first of all, this kind of story, as you said, has never been told before. It believe it was the first time a film put a middle-aged Chinese lesbian front and centre on the big screen in the whole world. But something did change, I really feel the very fresh perspective brought to this story was from John Chen.  

You know, when you write a script, it’s a process, and I enjoy that a lot, it’s my way to explore this story and my characters, and even grow up with them. So I think that it is very natural to improve the characters, to improve the structure, to improve the dialogue. That was my job, but Joan Chen brought something I didn’t imagine to the story.  For example, I didn’t imagine that Feng Xia has a very innocent side to her.  Joan, as both an actress and a person, has an innocent side she brings to Feng Xia and that gave me a new perspective on the character and because of that I refined the character throughout the whole story.  This is the thing that a great actor can bring and Joan Chen is a great actor.  For Camille, I wanted to make sure to cast an actress from Montreal, and Charlotte Aubin fit perfectly right away, but Joan really brought something new and special to the character. 

Matthew: Did you do extensive rehearsals or did you prefer to let them develop their chemistry on camera?

Xiaodan: To be honest, we didn’t have a huge budget, so we didn’t do extensive rehearsals, only two or three times.  Joan arrived only ten days before shooting and that time had to include rehearsals but also hair, costuming and makeup, so we focused on the key scenes and only a few times.  We did make time to rehearse the intimacy scenes but because of the reality of the situation, we had to let them explore more during the shoot. Of course, I have to watch and tell them what I want but I didn’t have to do that too much because they’re both professionals, but also because Joan Chen loves Feng Xia, and this helps so much.  Joan is an immigrant herself to the United States, with two daughters raised in two cultures, so she knows the dilemma and attitudes of Feng Xia well, and because of that understanding, I didn’t need to discuss much beyond key moments. 

Both of them are so good and professional. I am very lucky because they are so generous. I feel that in this movie, they really give all they can give.

Matthew: It sounds like a very special collaboration!

Xiaodan: Very much, and we had a very good vibe on the site, which is very important, and we joked and made them relax, and sometimes we improvised the dialogue when we were in it. So I enjoyed that very much.

Matthew: This film has been described in multiple reviews as a love letter to Montreal, so if Montreal is a character, how would you describe that character in the film?

Xiaodan: Yeah, after 20 years, I click with this city, with Montreal.  I feel grateful to the city that has given me a lot in my life. I think the core value of this city, of this country, Canada, is respect, freedom, and tolerance for different things, for different cultures. I really, sincerely, feel that diversity is respected here in Montreal. I haven’t travelled much across Canada. I’m not a big traveller, but in Montreal, I can feel that quite well. 

I think this makes artists very comfortable, and that is very important for creating artwork in this kind of environment. I feel it’s a very relaxing, simple. I like this. As Feng Xia said, Montreal is like me; we are simple. These are my words. I just let Feng Xia speak them. 

I appreciate that a lot, because the simple is not simple. Simple is not an easy state to achieve. According to Taoism and Buddhism, simplicity is a healthy and good state. So, Monsieur, I feel very relaxed and can live here as you want. People will not bother you, and you can be yourself. And not too big. It’s a little bit like my hometown in China, and I enjoy this size in the summer; it’s so beautiful. So why did I choose to film in the summer? I wanted to show the beauty of this city. It’s not a huge city like New York or Tokyo, but Montreal has its own very charming beauty. And a lot of people told me that show, then you, you really bring out the beauty of this city of Montreal.

Matthew: I was just there in the fall, and, yeah, I would say you brought that out really well. 

Xiaodan: I like the humble, humble side of the people here. The openness, but we have said, we don’t shout out that we are liberal, or we are whatever. It’s very humble, very relaxed.

Matthew: I just have one more question I like to ask at the end. You’ve obviously done a number of these interviews now to promote the film and talk about the film.  Is there anything about the film that people aren’t asking you about or talking about that you kind of wish they were?

Xiaodan: Good question, Matt, to be honest, I think I got really a big ran range of questions and to touch, touch all the, all the layers of this film. Because, as you can see, this film is not only about a love story or homosexuality; there are a lot of layers. And so far, it’s almost touched all the bases, nice.

Matthew: I think that’s actually pretty rare, so that’s amazing!

Xiaodan:  Yeah, immigration life, identity, Chinese woman’s motherhood, women’s midlife crisis, women’s self-liberation, and the relationship between parents and children. To be honest, I’m very happy to get such a wide variety of questions, and I think the audience really gets the messages in the movie. Montreal, as you said, is a character. People get that very well.

Matthew: Thank you so much for your time. It’s been a pleasure speaking to you. Congratulations on the film. I hope I see some love for you at the awards this year, and I hope the best of luck with whatever’s next.

Xiaodan: Thank you!

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Montreal, Ma Belle (Montreal, My Beautiful)