Before Then

Every form of communication involves deciphering codes. In this fascinating student film, director Mengzhu Xue attempts to confess a secret that she has carried with her for years. It is a secret that has taken her down the wrong path, rather than the one laid out for her as a young Chinese woman—marriage, children. She presents the secret in the form of a letter in English, which she writes out phonetically in Chinese, and asks her grandmother to read out loud. The secret has been uttered, but in sounds that have no meaning to her grandmother.