Grandma

The son of Vietnamese immigrants to Canada, the filmmaker returns to his roots to meet his grandmother and other relatives. A family made up mainly of women awaits him, as does the huge responsibility of finding his own identity. “I am interested in the line of descent, in the relationship between culture and generation, as well as the immaterial link that connects man and his own personal history to the places that are evocative of this history. Through Bà nội, I return to a past that throws light upon my present; it’s a musing on my relationship with history, as personal as it is family-related” (KL). Moving hesitantly between ancestral roots and western lifestyles, Khoa Lê films an encounter: an encounter with the other, yet also with himself. The country opens up before his eyes and he is seized by new sensations. It is the end of the year in Vietnam and the holidays are beginning. His trip soon becomes a form of visionary vertigo... A family film that becomes ethnographic, a travel film that becomes dreamlike, an intimate film that opens up the world. A first feature-length film that unveils a filmmaker.