My Father and My Mother

Over a period of 30 years, the well-known Chinese photographer Bo Jiao took more than 10,000 photographs of his parents. This film is drawn from a selection of these photos and the hours of video footage that Jiao has shot since the 1980s, during his trips to his parents’ house in rural China. It’s an unvarnished and affectionate portrayal of the everyday life of a simple Chinese family in a remote mountain village. The aging couple works on the land and looks after the photographer’s disabled elder brother. They bicker constantly, but are clearly devoted to each other. For Jiao, photographing his mom and dad has been his way to keep his family close by. Over the years, as we see his parents change, the intimacy within the family changes, too – until, inevitably, death approaches. Out of more than 600 hours of raw video material, Jiao filtered a moving and intimate love story that provides insight into the lives of two elderly people in the Chinese countryside. Or, to paraphrase the photographer’s own words: boring, but legendary.