‘Real friendship’: Man gets his iPhone stolen in East Village bar. Then he finds strange photos in his iCloud a year later

A famous narrative from 2015 has made a surprising revival. Unlikely friends Li Hongjun and Matt Stopera, who met because of a stolen iPhone despite living on opposite ends of the world, finally made it to the big screen after their story went viral nearly 10 years ago. 

Current Netflix producer, director, and former BuzzFeed employee, Abe Foreman-Greenwald and his team released the documentary Brother Orange in January, the day after Inauguration Day. 

Ten years after it initially broke the internet, this story of enduring cross-cultural friendship may have come at the perfect time.

Who is Brother Orange?

In 2015, Matt Stopera, now deputy editorial director at BuzzFeed, wrote a story about his stolen phone ending up in China. 

Matt documented the events that transpired roughly six months after his phone was stolen in his BuzzFeed article. 

Suddenly, photos of a random man standing next to an orange tree appeared on his new phone. Pictures of Chinese storefronts, a random woman riding on a bike, and fireworks followed. 

Stopera, confused, couldn’t understand where these photos were coming from. That is, until he realized his iPhone which was stolen six months prior was still logged into his iCloud account. A quick search on Find My iPhone revealed it was in Meizhou, China. 

Sharing his story on social media, Stopera gained a massive following and stirred up a lot of publicity on a Chinese social media app called Weibo. Users on the app found the man on Stopera’s phone in a matter of days. 

Only a couple of weeks later, Stopera met the man on his stolen phone, Li Hongjun, named ‘Brother Orange’ by social media users. 

Equipped with nothing but a suitcase, his producer Abe Foreman-Greenwald, and a translator, Stoper headed to China to meet Hongjun.

The trip began as a BuzzFeed-backed endeavor to further explore the viral friendship. But, the documentary feature Brother Orange further explored their relationship ten years later.

The Man Behind the Magic

Foreman-Greenwald, who directed the documentary, described the film as “so different from anything else that was on BuzzFeed,” at the time. 

When Stopera first published his story, he and Foreman-Greenwald didn’t know each other. But the latter, a producer at BuzzFeed at the time, expressed interest in branching out from the short, fast-paced videos that he usually produced. 

BuzzFeed shorts are typically 5-10 minute videos recorded in a studio—a niche that the publication has championed since the 2010s. For example, a recent short captures the Bridgerton cast showing fans the ‘proper’ way to make tea. Another popular short in light of the Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowl win shows Philadelphia residents trying other cities' versions of a Philly cheesesteak.

Stopera’s burgeoning friendship with Hongjun was an opportunity to do something completely different.

“So I saw his post and just immediately emailed him,” Foreman-Greenwald said in a phone interview with the Daily Dot. He told Stopera, “If you go to China, I really want to come with you and make a documentary about this. And he said, sure, sounds good. And that was kind of the thing that kicked it all off.”

Foreman-Greenwald jumped into the project with little vision of its end result in mind, propelled simply by his interest in the bizarre scenario and unique relationship.

“I think that was the main appeal to me of this kind of unlikely connection between two people from really different cultures,” he said. 

Making the Documentary

The documentary maintains a very “home video” tone. Foreman-Greenwald described the aesthetic as that of the Maysles brothers, but a little more fast-paced. The Maysles brothers known for their deeply emotional and dramatic documentaries, like Rolling Stones feature Gimme Shelter, often captured with a hand-held camera. It aligns with Foreman-Greenwald’s nimble approach: “Just find whatever the story ended up being.” 

The entire documentary was filmed handheld with a Canon SLR camera and a microphone mounted on top—something Foreman-Greenwald felt offered a more comfortable experience for his real-world characters. 

“I think you get a lot more intimacy with the subjects that you're capturing if you're kind of in the moment with them and not setting up a whole lighting package and set,” Foreman-Greenwald said. 

What Happened After the Trip? 

There is one very scarce difference between Stopera’s BuzzFeed story and Foreman-Greenwald’s film: time. 

Stopera hasn’t written about the relationship for BuzzFeed since 2015. However, he did publish a separate story about ‘Brother Orange’s visit to the U.S. a month after his initial article.   

Brother Orange, the film, catches up with the pair in 2022—reflecting the longevity of Stopera and Hongjun’s relationship. Only the first third of the film touches on Stopera’s initial trip with BuzzFeed in 2015.

As mentioned earlier, Hongjun came to the U.S. for his own culture-shocking experience afterward.

“I think having the stuff from like 2022 at the end just kind of deepens their relationship,” Foreman-Greenwald said. “Not only did they have this interesting experience together, but they've stayed in touch and have this real friendship of checking in on each other whenever things are tough.”

The documentary showed the ways Stopera and Hongjun stayed in touch and the “lack of” a communication barrier, despite speaking different languages. The two friends often talked through an app called WeChat, which automatically translated their conversations into their respective languages. 

However, post-production translating wasn’t as simple, Foreman-Greenwald said. 

Associate producer of the film, Beinmeng Fu, being from China, played a crucial role and translating cultural differences through text. 

“Even with the translation, like on WeChat, the automatic translation, there's still things that just culturally I don't get at all and won't because I live in China and I don't have that cultural context,” Foreman-Greenwald said. “So having her viewpoint on all of those points throughout the movie was really helpful.” 

But, why the wait?

Even though Stopera published his first story in 2015 the documentary didn't release until this year.

But, why?

Foreman-Greenwald said a lot went into the documentary over the past 10 years. The film showcases Stopera and Hongjun’s relationship well past Stopera’s initial visit to China, through the COVID-19 pandemic, and then some. Not to mention the writer's strike in 2023 also halted production. 

But Brother Orange finally released on Jan. 21 and is available for rent or purchase on Amazon Prime Video, AppleTV, and other select streaming services. And it may have come at an even more pivotal time—at least when it comes to Chinese and American friendships.

Can the U.S. and China be friends again?

It is no secret that amidst the threat of the TikTok ban, many social media users have fled to a similar Chinese app called RedNote or Xiohongshu. Users flocking to Rednote have posted their enlightening encounters with individuals from China. 

“It's like, a lot of people going on RedNote get to have their own ‘Brother Orange’ experience, basically,” Foreman-Greenwald said. 

Wishing to soothe political tension and combat propaganda, the director also hopes “that [the movie] can be kind of a balm for people and really at a really difficult time."

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