Up New Generation is a new version of the Up Series, following the lives of a group of individuals who were seven years old at the turn of the millennium. 28 Up was broadcast on BBC One from September 2021 with the new title Millennium Generation.
Mandarin Film was asked to help with Stacey’s story – Stacey grew up in New Mills and is currently working as an English teacher in China. When BBC filmed Stacey at 14, she had previously only ever left her birthplace of New Mills to go on a family holiday. Painfully shy, she didn’t even enjoy the one time she’d made the 45-minute journey to Manchester, which she found frightening and alienating.
The first member of her family to gain a place at university, Stacey graduated from the University of Lancaster last summer, and with no real idea of what to do next, applied to teach English in China. At 21, we catch up with her in Changsha – a city the size of London – in Hunan Province, Southern China.
Stacey was supposed to return to UK in 2020, but she chose to stay in Changsha because of the pandemic. In the show, we will see her everyday life of work and study and feel her happiness when gathering with friends. In the meantime, Stacey is also sad about leaving the city she lived in the past seven years.
In 2021 January, Mandarin Film was excited to plan and produce the shoots involving Stacey in Changsha at the age of 28. Against the challenging background of covid-19, the shoot was conducted entirely remotely, with a strong local team working with production house Multi Story Media to cover the story of her leaving the city she had spent many years working and living in.