About death in asian culture
A very profound short movie I had the chance to work on as the art director. A story about caring, filial piety. A story about death, a taboo subject in many cultures.
One of the challenges was to find a good balance of a decor and props references to an asian family household. Such as the little box of biscuits that do not contain biscuits…
To create those little winks to the asian community.
Also to work with the lighting to create an atmosphere for telling a story about death in asian family, with the big presence of the altar.
FR
Un court-métrage d’une profondeur impalpable auquel j’ai eu la chance de travailler en tant que directrice artistique. Une histoire qui parle de prendre soin de la famille, de piété filiale. Une histoire qui aborde ce sujet encore tabou dans bien des cultures, la mort.
Un des défis était de trouver un équilibre entre des clins d’oeil qui nous rappellent que nous sommes dans une maison d’une famille asiatique, comme la boîte de biscuits qui ne contient pas de biscuits. De créer des messages imagiers à l’audience provenant de la communauté asiatique.
Il y avait également le défi de travailler avec la lumière, créer une atmosphère pour parler de la mort, avec un accent mis sur la présence de l’autel des ancêtres.
Asian upcycling style
Never dumping things, always give another function for objects loosing their primary function.
Lights
The different light sources were important to set the ambiance of the heaviness of the subject and at the same time the warmth of each characters, their care, their love for each other.
9 year-old Trang starts to shift out of oblivion as her aunt Ut tends to Grandma, who lies in her deathbed in the living room. How can a single body occupy so much space? What will happen when Grandma is gone?
na·nit·ic
2022 | Fiction | 14 min — na·nit·ic / adjective: The first brood of worker ants produced by a queen ant using only the reserved nutrition in her body. Nanitics shoulder the initial fate of the colony and are often underfed due to the conditions in colony building. Thus, nanitics may be smaller in size from later workers ants to optimize the survival of the group… — But what happens to the colony when the queen dies? Had the nanitics done enough?
Credits
Cast and Crew
Starring – Kylie Le, Ly Pham & Van Pham With – Dam Nguyen, Eve Sevigny, Fred Nguyen Khan and An Nguyen
Writer, Director, Editor – Carol Nguyen
Producer – Marie Lytwynuk & Carol Nguyen
Line Producer – Louis-Emmanuel Gangé-Brochu
Executive Producers – Karine Bélanger & Hany Ouichou
1st Assistant Director – Nadia Louis-Demarchais
Cinematographer – Alexandre Nour-Desjardins
Art Director – Estelle Tang
Sound Recordist – Andrés Solis
Sound Designer – Giulio Trejo-Martinez
Music Composer – Arie Van de Ven
Gaffer – Luna Gauthier
Grip – Evangelos Desborough
Colourist – William Albu
Mixer – Vid Cousins
Illustrator – Michelle Nguyen
Poster Designer – Caspar Newbolt
Distribution: Travelling Distribution
Photo credits : Dorothy | On set DSLR