Things We Carry

On Chinese New Year’s Day in 2022, Yan, a young mother, navigates life in Melbourne after self-exiling from her unaccepting family. Overworked and underpaid as a massage therapist, she returns home too exhausted to notice the quiet transformation happening in her eight-year-old son, Yuan Yuan.

That night, at her Aunt Su’s New Year’s dinner, Yān meets her nephew, Andy, who has fully embraced Western culture, becoming distant from both his language and his mother. For the first time, Yan realises the changes in Yuan Yuan — and the possibility that one day, he too may become a stranger to her. Faced with an uncertain future, she must decide: return to China or take a leap of faith in this new life.

Film Content Advisory: Emotional Pain, Grief

Credits
Writer: Zhang Yifan
Producer: Sally Long, Soleil Wang
Director of Photography: Ryan Bell
Editor: Zhang Yifan
Production Designer: Yunxi Li
Composer: Vladimir Gapontsev
Sound Designer: Rizky Pratama

Plays in

FROM VISIONS TO REEL: LIVING LEGACY

Welcome to your life: Google translate, pastries, dildos, suburbia, calls to your mom, kung fu, deceitful karaoke, and being the last of your kind. Reflect on what you have been given and what it means to leave a legacy of your own.