First Conversation

Film description

Sometimes, it is hardest to talk to those closest to us. In Ho Kueng Lon’s First Conversation, the camera becomes a means of exploring his own family, its unspoken truths, its estrangement, and emotions left unexpressed over the years. His aunt’s physical disability gradually distanced her from her loved ones. Following her death, the director realises that a similar distance has grown between himself and his mother. He decides to make a fresh start: through everyday gestures and seemingly ordinary conversations, he tries to rebuild their broken bonds. This is an intimate, deeply personal film in which the act of filming becomes a form of self-reflection, an attempt to understand not only others but also his own place in his family’s history. Tender, moving, and understated, without offering easy answers, First Conversation reminds us that sometimes all it takes is the courage to look a little closer to begin a conversation that once seemed impossible.

The film is presented as part of the programme Subverted Gazes: Collisions of Aesthetics.

Director’s Statement

Moving 8,251 kilometres away from Macau to study in Poland, I found myself tethered to two family members back home, representing a complex pull of both longing and escape. This very real distance made me realise that we had never truly had a “conversation”, shared our love, or carried each other’s sorrows. Should the distance between my family and me ever become impossible to measure, and should we begin to forget the sound of each other’s voices, I hope this documentary will serve as an audible photograph for the future.