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A director’s secret letter to his mother

Director Vee Shi says his short film 'Jia' is 'a letter to my mother. It encapsulates my deepest love for her but also a secret that I am unable to tell her in words'.

20 Dec 2023 11:29

Christy Tan

Still from short film 'Jia'. Image: Supplied. A white man stands on the left staring off into the distance, while an Asian woman stands beside him, smiling with hair flowing in the wind. They are both seen from the chest up and wearing black jackets.

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Still from short film ‘Jia’. Image: Supplied.

A conservative Chinese mother (Ming) meets the Caucasian boyfriend of her closeted, deceased son (Yao). Together they take a road trip through rural Victoria, travelling along the same route Yao took with Eric before dying in a car accident. Despite their differences, Ming and Eric find a common language through their shared grief and love. Jia is a meditation on memory and how we remember those we mourn. The psychogeography of their shared journey navigates what Director Vee Shi calls, ‘the universal truths in our experiences that bind us together’.

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Christy Tan

Christy Tan is a writer living in Melbourne on Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Country. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Overland, Kill Your Darlings, The Suburban Review, Cordite Poetry Review, Liminal Magazine, Going Down Swinging, Runway Journal, Peril Magazine, and more. She was a 2022 Hot Desk Fellow at the Wheeler Centre, member of the 2021-22 West Writers Group with Footscray Community Arts Centre, and has performed at the Digital Writers' Festival, Emerging Writers' Festival, National Young Writers' Festival and +Concepts Lecture Series.