The in-progress film, titled My Heart Is Not Above My Liver, has an estimated length of 40 minutes. It explores the musical lives of village women from Hubei Province during the 20^th century. Within a patriarchal social structure, instrumental ensembles, mostly consisting of suona (double-reed aerophone) and percussion and performed for rituals and ceremonies, are dominated by male villagers, while women often sing as entertainment. The initial filming began in response to the author’s grandmother’s request to document songs remembered by her elder sister, from whom she had originally learned them. Through revisiting these songs, which include wedding/funeral laments, didactic songs, and group songs, a full landscape of village women’s lifelong experiences gradually unfolds, narrating happiness, sorrow, and moral and marital life. Focusing on the life trajectory of Grandma Wu Jinlan (1934-2023), who was raised as a child bride, this film foregrounds the musical life and creativity of ordinary people (Nettl 2015), arguing for the affective support of song and its significance in revisiting life trauma. The film is in editing, with an experimental attempt to engage ethnographic film as a writing practice, exploring its possibilities above an alternative to a research report or an adjunct to fieldwork (Baily 2009). The excerpt discusses how the subjectivity of actors might be returned from the filmmaker during filming and editing, and how to balance scholarly aims with accessibility for a broader public audience. Conversations and songs in the film are in the local dialect, with bilingual subtitles in Chinese and English.