19 Sep 18:00

To be announced

Guián

Dir Nicole Chi Amén | Costa Rica | 2023 | 75min

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. This traveling to different parts of Costa Rica provides a glimpse of the Chinese-Costa Rican community, and she finds a poetic resemblance between these characters and her deceased grandma.

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While uncovering more about Guián, Nicole finds the need to go to Engping, the village in Southern China her grandma abandoned to run away from the rise of communism in China. This would be 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. After a long journey, she finds the house Guián abandoned, but more importantly, the meaning of the journey itself.

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This film is the first and last imagined conversation between a granddaughter and a grandmother who never shared a common language.

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Director bio

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Nicole Chi 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 Visions du Réel, New Orleans, NYLFF, and SSFF & ASIA.

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