This film begins with a dream that leads the filmmaker back to the unresolved wound of maternal absence in childhood. Moving between the home where she now lives with her mother and the hometown connected to her early memories, the film follows her attempt to understand what kind of emotional damage this absence has left behind. Through conversations, everyday encounters, and moments of self-reflection, the filmmaker gradually discovers that the truth she is searching for is not only about her mother's absence but also about her own need to let go of these struggles and form reconciliation with herself. Grounded in therapeutic documentary filmmaking, the project treats filming as a process of emotional discovery and healing. By occupying the roles of filmmaker, subject, and spectator at once, the work investigates how making a film about one's own family creates the conditions for re-authoring the story — shifting from being shaped by family experience to becoming an active interpreter of it.
Xiaoqi Pu is a filmmaker and media practitioner whose work explores personal memory, family relationships, and emotional healing through documentary practice. Her recent work focuses on maternal absence, childhood experience, and the process of self-reconciliation. Through autobiographical filmmaking, intimate observation, and reflective editing, she uses the camera as a way to revisit unresolved emotions and transform private experience into cinematic expression.
