SPRING FESTIVAL

When COVID-19 hit, I had already lived in the US for 4 years. I couldn’t go back to China for the Spring Festival, so my mom started sending me videos of family gatherings. We began having more conversations over the phone, during which we talked about topics we had never talked about before. I wanted to understand my mother as a person, beyond just her role as my parent, and to know more about her youth during the social changes in China. As part of her generation, my mother had witnessed many significant events in China's recent history, including Mao's death, economic reforms, the influence of Western culture, and the 1989 Tiananmen protest. She married my father and gave birth to me in the early 90s, a time when many believe that China promised prosperity, openness, and individual freedom. However, she believes that the past should stay in the past and that I should focus on the present instead. Despite our differences, we trust each other in the collaboration of making this work. This film reveals a dialectical relationship between two generations, through the use of vernacular footage that highlights the quotidian aspect of life.