Former Spartan finds success in films

Sometimes, it takes a few tries to find something you truly enjoy doing or something you’re good at. Film student Christina Xing, a former Mountain Brook resident, has been there.

“I’ve tried a lot of things,” she said. “Growing up in Mountain Brook, they offer you a lot of things to do. I felt like I wasn’t good at anything.”

Then she found filmmaking. 

Xing made her first movie in elementary school, and by age 13, she was selected to screen one of her films at the Hollywood Film Festival.

“Naturally I thought [the festivals] were really cool,” she said. 

Despite her success at such a young age, Xing was hesitant to pursue directing, simply because of the other voices in her life who were telling her it wasn’t possible to have a career in film.

“Finally I just realized, out of everything in my life … the only thing that was a constant was movies,” she said. “You only get one lifetime, presumably. Why would you want to spend it doing something you don’t care about?”

For high school, Xing made the decision to attend the Interlochen Center for the Arts, a boarding school in Interlochen, Michigan. Now a senior, she takes standard core classes as well as classes that focus on filmmaking, much like a college major would.

“It was crazy because in Mountain Brook, I was known as the film kid. And then here, everyone is the film kid,” Xing said. 

By being surrounded by other film students, Xing has learned more about herself and her film style. Her central theme, she said, tends to revolve around loneliness. Although unintentional, she credits the theme to her parents’ divorce.

“It really impacted my world and how I viewed things,” she said. “My films tend to compensate for the loss of that father figure.”

Xing said she is also able to collaborate with other students at Interlochen to bring her films to life. In fact, her most recent film, “Goldfish,” was so successful that it was chosen to be screened at the 2016 All American High School Film Festival in New York City. 

“Goldfish” follows a girl struggling to fit in as she works on a class project with the class clown. Eventually, she comes to terms with who she is and realizes she isn’t that different from her peers after all. 

“It was so crazy hearing it [my movie] in surround sound and on the big screen,” Xing said. “It was just a really cool experience overall.”

Her film went on to earn Best Drama of the festival, which she explained is similar to a sports team winning an award.

“It’s such a team effort [to create a movie] that it’s not fair for me to say I won this award by myself,” she said. 

After she graduates from Interlochen, Xing said she is hoping continue her education by earning a degree in film or in history, so she can incorporate stories of the past in her films. Eventually, she’d like to end up in Hollywood, but not for the glitz and glamour. 

“For me, it’s about the idea that Hollywood films reach an audience,” she said. “When you make films, I think it’s so important to make people think. I hope I can accomplish that.”