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Three Ages

A 7-year-old Chinese boy arrives in Barcelona in 1992 to reunite with the parents he barely knows.

synopsis

Xiaowei, a 7-year-old Chinese boy, arrives in Barcelona during the 1992 Olympics to be reunited with his parents, who emigrated to Spain to run a restaurant when he was still a baby. Kaiwen, his mother, struggles to create a bond with him, but Xiaowei is unable to correspond. As Xiaowei grows up, his parents divorce, his grandmother arrives, and he is pushed to take on more family responsibilities. Feeling like an outsider, he rebels – skipping school, stealing, and straining ties with his mother. After a serious fight between mother and son, the family enters the new millennium distant and fractured. By the late 2000s, Xiaowei feels frustrated working as a cook in the family restaurant, nearly empty because of the world economic crisis. At last, Kaiwen decides to sell the restaurant and free him from the family burden, finding connection between them for the first time.

Director’statement

As a young Spaniard of Chinese origin, I am part of a generation that has grown up without references in Spanish fiction that go beyond clichés and stereotypes about Chinese reality and culture. From this absence of references comes the need to tell a story like Three Ages, a film about the Chinese community that shows the different perspectives of a family of three generations in three eras living in Barcelona. However, Three Ages is not a portrait of just any ordinary family, it is a personal story, a tribute to the women in my family: my mother, my aunt, my sister and, especially, my grandmother. Three Ages is cheerful, tender, festive, with touches of humour, but there are also anger, miscommunication, frustration and loneliness. There is a bittersweet taste, as one would say in Chinese, 酸 甜 苦 辣 Suan Tian Ku La (sour, sweet, bitter and spicy), all the flavours of life.

TFL PROGRAMME:
FeatureLab 2025

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