Seaside Cemetery

Overview

On the Nanhai Peninsula, there is a seaside cemetery where the Yang family’s tombs are built on the coastal rocks, facing the water. The director’s grandfather’s family archives mention that he was born on this small peninsula. Around 1949, amidst the various social upheavals, the director’s grandfather and his family members faced divergent fates due to different historical issues. Two decades later, another period of unrest saw him subjected to injustice and brought about his untimely death. Like many of his generation, he left behind only scattered words and fragments of a story that slowly faded from the family’s memory. The director wanders through the lonely graves, ancestral homes and relatives’ houses on the Nanhai Peninsula, sifting through the dust-covered relics in her grandmother’s room as the objects which haunt her hometown undergo a second death.