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part of
double bill #25
Before Then
哦玛
IDFA
2024
Int’l Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen
Ecumenical Jury Prize 2024
Golden Horse Film Festival
Beste Documentary Short Film
Language can be coded, decoded, and uncoded—while still remaining deceptive and prone to failure—even in front of the closest people in life, such as between a grandmother and the granddaughter she brought up. There are things we are not courageous enough to say outright, things that slip through words; and there are also words overwhelmed by emotion, and words we fear will be understood—and are misunderstood anyway.
Language, as a process of exchanging codes, lies at the heart of Before Then. By deconstructing the Saussurean signified and signifiers, navigating between severed phonemes and semantics, and reinventing phonemes in a cross-cultural way, the film explores the existential difficulty of sharing oneself as the true self in a social context that refuses to accept one as they are. It is a complicated web of coming out without truly being able to come out; of connecting at the deepest level while remaining disconnected at one crucial level of life; of unconditional love that is so moving it hurts. The buried secret exists as a severed part of the self, tempted only by the possibility of transcending its dissociation—a kind of homecoming that is destined not really to arrive.
Bio Mengzhu Xue
Mengzhu Xue is a filmmaker and artist based in Germany and China. She creates hybrid works that blend moving image, performance, and mixed-media installation, exploring the possibilities of cinema beyond existing forms. She has long been fascinated by the interplay of media and the relationship between image and imagination, exploring alternative ways of perceiving and storytelling. Drawing from personal encounters, sensory experience, and everyday observation, she investigates cross-cultural tensions and layered meanings. She hopes to open immersive spaces where ambiguity, intimacy, and reflection intertwine.
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