Time and Tide

After a twenty-year absence, Vee Shi returns to China, hoping to reconnect with relatives he has never truly known. Having left at 13, he finds a father weakened by a stroke, a mother worn down by years of holding the household together at all costs, and an exhausted sister – the only one of the four children to remain in the country. Under cover of a fictional narrative, his camera slips into the silences and arguments, bringing the unspoken to light and exposing a micro-society marked by debt, violence and obligations it cannot escape. Three generations collide, echoing recurring patterns: sacrifice, abandonment, reproach. In a context where so many children grew up apart, left to their own devices while their parents were away working, time eventually reverses the roles. This raises the overwhelming question of care. Who tends to the parents when they start to regress? How do you care for those who have not always cared for you?  In the intimacy of a kitchen, the filmmaker captures a family on the brink of collapse, revealing through them the contradictions of an entire society.

Anne Delseth

Time and Tide, 2026
Jia, 2022
Surprise, 2019
Oh, Brother, 2017
Before & After 23, 2015