GENRE: DOCUMENTARY (FEATURE), DOCUMENTARY (SHORT)
TYPE: FILM | IN-PERSON
KEYWORDS: TRAUMA | HEALING | ILLNESS | FAMILIES | MENTAL HEALTH
It’s never easy to talk about mortality with our loved ones. It’s even harder between a physician mother who excels at hiding her emotions under rationality and a daughter who spent her childhood solving math problems next to the morgue. They avoid conversation about mortality and related feelings at all costs – until the mother becomes a cancer patient and the daughter becomes her caregiver.
Screening with Short Film
Uproot | Queena Liu | Canada | Doc | 2023 | 11 minutes English and Cantonese with English subtitles
“Ten years ago, my dad was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in his forties and spent two years in and out of a psychiatric hospital. This film documents my first time having an open and honest conversation with my family about his diagnosis that I never could as a child and explores how mental health care in immigrant communities is often complicated by a cultural and generational divide. Even as I gain a new perspective on my family’s silent struggles, putting together my interpretation of their stories, I still feel the need to hide myself behind the camera.”
