Docs By The Sea 2026 • In-person Lab: 2–5 September 2026 • Forum : 6–9 September 2026

Floating House

浮动着的房子

In a border village, Aunt Xin watches her community fade as visible and invisible boundaries reshape memory and belonging.

Aunt Xin lives in an aging border village where most younger residents have moved away. The remaining elders face renewed dispersion, invisible boundaries, and fading memories of the opposite shore. Blending present day imagery with traces of the past, the film reflects on migration, rootlessness, aging and the emotional landscape of ethnic communities in a changing world.

Daily life, border landscape, and character’s inner terrain gradually weave together. Past and present overlap while memory and reality remain indistinguishable. Aunt Xin’s house becomes both a physical shelter and a metaphorical body: a vessel carrying memory, absence, and longing.

In a world shaped by separations, the spiritual landscape of these communities remains perpetually “floating”: where can they place their memory, emotion and identity?