It’s never easy to talk about mortality with our loved ones. It’s even harder between a physician mother who excels at hiding her emotions under rationality and a daughter who spent her childhood solving math problems next to the morgue. They avoid conversation about mortality and related feelings at all costs - until the mother becomes a cancer patient and the daughter becomes her caregiver.

Siyi Chen is a Chinese documentary filmmaker based in Zhejiang and New York. Chen received a B.A. in World History and Chinese Literature (dual degree) from Peking University and an M.A. in News and Documentary from New York University. She has produced, shot, and edited many short documentaries that appeared on Quartz, CNN, and PBS. Her feature debut Dear Mother, I Meant to Write about Death (originally named People’s Hospital) received grants from IDFA Bertha Fund, Chicken & Egg Pictures and the Asian Cinema Fund. Chen is also the winner of the SFFILM’s 2019 New American Fellowship and a former artist-in-residence at the Jacob Burns Film Center. Chen is dedicated to creating lyrical and poetic portraits of women, diving into the rich psychological world of her characters.

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