GUIÁN
Wednesday, Sept 11 at 2:00 PM
Cineworks
Director: Nicole Chi Amén
Costa Rica | 2023 | Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, Yue Chinese (Cantonese) with English Subtitles | 76 min | Family Documentary
Sliding Scale Tickets:
$10 / $13 / $15
Plus VLAFF Membership required
As a consequence of Guián passing away, Nicole starts meeting up with people that had known her grandma: her best friend, her younger brother and her grandma from her dad’s side. In them, Nicole finds a poetic resemblance between these members of the Chinese-Costa Rican community and her deceased grandma.
In these conversations Nicole finds the need to go to Engping, the village in Southern China her grandma abandoned to run away from the rise of communism, the first time Nicole ever steps into Chinese soil. Having never learned Chinese, she confronts the reality of a country and culture she thought she knew.
This film is the first and last imagined conversation between a granddaughter and a grandmother who never shared a common language.
“[A] sublime cinematic travelogue in which sensuous shots capture the essence of a place, in spite of linguistic differences.”
Visions du Réel
Special Mention, Burning Lights Competition, Visions du Réel, 2023
NICOLE CHI AMÉN
(Costa Rica, 1992) is a Costa Rican-born Chinese director, currently based in Austin, Texas. She’s been recognized with awards like the Director’s Guild of America’s Student Film Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement and AFS’s Texas New Voices. She was part of Talents Guadalajara and is a Fulbright Fellow. Her work has been selected in festivals like Telluride, SXSW, Visions du Réel, New Orleans FF, and SSFF & ASIA.
This film qualifies for the People’s Choice Award, presented by:
Community partner
