Grains of memories, a thesis film project completed by May, 2025
It is a low-budget film made together with friends and family, infused with our love and time.
poster designed by yirou
In the summer of 2024, I returned to my rapidly changing hometown, Pinghu, Zhejiang.
While spending time with my mom, I began filming spontaneous moments on 16mm and Super 8, blending non-synced sound and secretly recorded dialogue.
The film cross-edits black-and-white scenes from Boston with color footage from home.
“Memory tastes like sweet fermented rice,” my mom said. Through disordered sound and image, imagined sounds and colored grain, memory appears—shifting between presence and absence, past and present. While spending time with my mom, I began shooting footage for my short film. I took a flexible approach, capturing spontaneous moments on film, using matte box techniques and direct animation, and mixing sound in post-production. I added secretly recorded dialogues to create a sense of delayed time. The black-and-white segments represent Boston, while the colored parts were filmed in my hometown. The reality of my life abroad became black-and-white, while the past remains in color. I aimed to create a sense of back-and-forth movement, blending disordered sound and visuals, as if shaping memories.
这是一部纪录短片。
2024年夏天，我回到了家乡浙江平湖，一个正在迅速变化的地方。与妈妈相处的日子里，我用16毫米和Super 8胶片记录下许多即兴的瞬间，混合了非同步声音与悄悄录下的对话。影片交叉剪辑了波士顿的黑白画面与家乡的彩色影像。妈妈说：“记忆像甜米酒的味道。”在杂乱的声音与图像、虚构的音效和颗粒斑斓的胶片中，记忆若隐若现，游移在现在与过去、出现与缺席之间。我采用灵活的拍摄方式，结合遮光箱技巧与手绘动画，后期混音，并加入偷录的对话，好像一种时间延迟的感受。黑白画面象征我在海外的生活，彩色片段则代表我对家乡的记忆。
现实变得黑白，过去却留在色彩之中。我试图通过声音与影像的错位，制作出一种来回穿梭、重塑记忆的感觉。