Grandma's Hairpin

Following the Chinese civil war in 1949, the Communists won control of China and the defeated Nationalist Government, led by Chiang Kai-shek, was forced to retreat to Taiwan with 600,000 soldiers. This led to the separation of many families. Some people only returned forty years later. The filmmaker focuses on the tragedy of her own family. Her mother and father appear in the film, making dinner, singing and praying together, remembering their pain from the past. The effect is that of an innocent, playful home movie made for fun and future grandchildren. But bit by bit, the pitiful story of these people, who were cut off from their families, denounced publicly and forced for many decades to perform hard labour, is revealed. Through interviews, but also using home-movie footage and a very calm voice-over, the director makes a personal but also universal journey into the past.