DIRECTOR BIOGRAPHY
Jennifer Chiu is an award-winning writer, director, producer and documentary researcher living in Vancouver, British Columbia. Her films have screened at festivals around the world including DOK Leipzig, Edinburgh Film Festival, Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, Mill Valley Film Festival, and the Vancouver International Film Festival. She recently completed her first feature documentary, Clan of the Painted Lady.











DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

I grew up without my father, who lived most of his life in Kolkata, India where our ancestors settled nearly 100 years ago. Over the last few years of visiting him in India before he moved back to Canada, I watched Tangra, the home of our Hakka-Chinese community, be demolished and developed at a rapid pace. I could feel how close we were to losing the last physical remnants of our history.

As a Chinese-Canadian person born in India, I spent a lot of my early life feeling disconnected from all the places where my life had landed. As I became more curious about my family story, I realized how much had already been lost or forgotten, including my ability to speak Hakka. As the imminent disappearance of our community in India loomed, I was left wondering, what’s left of us when it’s gone? How do we remember ourselves in the face of so much erasure?

My desire to remember compelled me to make this film. It taught me that culture lives or dies in the delicate space between generations. One severed tie may augur many cycles of loss and disconnection, because it only takes one generation to forget.I believe that choosing to remember the journeys, teachings, stories and recipes of our ancestors is a radical act. It is an antidote for the loss of language, culture and collective memory that is endemic across the world today.

If I had one wish for the film, it would be that a few people might become curious about their own cultures and families and start asking questions before it’s too late. As my film testifies, relationships with family and community aren’t easy, but they offer something immeasurable: a root system that keeps us grounded and connected no matter where we are or choose to go.







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