My Grandmother
Release Year: 2022
In 2012, after my grandfather passed away, my grandmother left the deserted village where she had lived for nearly half a century and moved to a strange county town. The next year, she was shocked to hear that her homeland would be leveled within two days - her "old world" was thus completely destroyed. After that, she spent a long time alone, often accompanied by her sick second daughter, and more often by an old TV and a deck of cards. When the wind blows, she dreams of the sunset, sheep, green grass, and curling smoke in her hometown. Every year, I go back with a camera to record her homesickness that has nowhere to go, listen to her reminiscences, and also take pictures of my childhood hometown that has also disappeared.
Casts & Crews:

Guo Kuan
Directors
2022 First Rural Image Festival - Excellent Film Award, Mainland China
2022 Caochangdi Mother Film Festival - Best Screen Mother Voting Award, Mainland China
This is a private video log spanning seven years, recording the disappearance of my hometown in the tide of modernization, as well as the life migration and spiritual wandering of my grandmother under the changing times, intertwining our long and complex homesickness when we look back at our hometown together. Grandpa passed away, taking away the last bit of vitality in the old house. Grandma was forced to leave the village where she had lived for nearly half a century, which had become desolate and dilapidated, and move to a strange county town. Just five days after she was at a loss, the family welcomed a new life - her uncle was promoted to grandfather. The strong contrast between death and rebirth became the beginning of this migration. Just one year later, a hasty notice like a thunderbolt: the village will be completely demolished within two days. The bulldozer roared past, and Grandma's entire "world" - the land she relied on to survive, the familiar courtyard, and the corner that held countless memories - was instantly turned to dust in the dust. The physical sense of the hometown was thus completely obliterated. In a world full of hustle and bustle, the children are busy, and what is left for Grandma is a long period of solitude in the apartment in the county town. Sometimes, she is accompanied by her granddaughter who is learning to speak and growing up quickly, but more often, she is accompanied by an old television that talks incessantly and a set of worn-out playing cards. The wind blew through the window, and she often fell into a dream: in the dream, it was the original appearance of the village before the demolition - the sunset melted gold, the sheep herd returned to the circle, the green grass was like a carpet, and the smoke rose straight to the peaceful sky. Every year, I carry the camera back to my hometown (now a geographical term), and the lens is focused on my grandmother's aging face and lonely life. I listened to her reminiscing about the old stories of "that village" and the people and things that had long since disappeared. Every shutter, every recording, is not only capturing her homesickness that has nowhere to go, but also picking up the fragments of my childhood scattered on the same ruins. On the day of the festival, the whole family gathered together for the first time. Grandma finally set foot on the homeland that she had been longing for, but it was unrecognizable. Faced with the ruins swallowed by the wildly growing wild grass, she stumbled and vainly and sadly identified and pointed out the foundation of her own house in the grass. The brief noise of the children came and went quickly, leaving a deeper silence. Grandma was silent, as if she had completed the final confirmation of this barren land, and reluctantly accepted the reality, and began to rebuild in the "new world" with difficulty. Stability did not last long. The old house of my uncle in the county town is facing demolition and renovation again, and my grandmother's confusion is once again ignited. Two years later, the renovation was completed, and my uncle moved into the resettlement building and rented a 40-square-meter place for her downstairs. The physical space has changed again, but the deep-rooted anxiety in my heart has not dissipated. She still often dreams, and the dreams are more and more clear: it is the hometown in the 1980s and 1990s, full of people, houses, neighbors and laughter, full of the smoke and fire of the old life - an "old world" that no longer exists in reality, but is eternal and vivid in her memory. She will eventually become the last, living monument of that world.
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Casts & Crews

Guo Kuan
Director