A young migrant worker moves from job to job, saying goodbye more often than he stays. A Yi ethnic minority youth leaves his mountain hometown to chase a football dream, filming the process as setbacks pile up. A retired single mother and practitioner of jiu-jitsu tries to return to competition, weighing ambition against the realities of love and family.
These three lives are part of “Nobody, But Somebody,” a new six-part documentary series set far from the spotlight of urban China. Across its episodes, the series follows young people whose efforts often go unrewarded, and who must learn to live with that uncertainty rather than escape it.
The project took shape in 2023, when filmmaker Tse Shuhao returned to China after studying documentary filmmaking at New York University. The pandemic had formally ended, but everyday pressures remained: saving money was harder, work felt less predictable, and long-term plans were increasingly difficult to map out.
Tse responded by turning his attention to other people’s lives. “I decided to film other people’s stories to look for my own answers,” the 31-year-old from Shanghai said. Beginning in March 2023, he developed “Nobody, But Somebody” as a long-term project, following six subjects over nearly three years.
