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THE FEELING OF BEING CLOSE TO YOU

Ash Goh Hua

12 min., 2022, United States, color, digital video Languages: Mandarin, English

In a reconciliatory phone conversation set to old home videos juxtaposed with footage of independent adult life, the filmmaker and their mother candidly discuss intergenerational trauma and abuse.

The Feeling of Being Close to You is a film that began with my desire to feel close to my mother—a difficult task when touch has been historically traumatic. When the filmmaking process laid bare what felt like an irrevocable chasm that laid between us, I could only turn this act of creation into a vessel to reconnect with my past selves. It is through the making of this film that I began to envision new possibilities of living and relating, to my mother and to myself.

Ash Goh Hua is a filmmaker from Singapore, based in New York. They tell political stories personally through experimental leaning documentaries, challenging dominant ideologies in order to imagine possibilities of other worlds. Ash has been supported by programs and fellowships from institutions like Sundance, ITVS, Jacob Burns Creative Culture, Jerome Foundation, and NYFA. Their films have screened and won awards at film festivals internationally, and have been distributed by PBS, The New Yorker, and Third World Newsreel. Ash was named one of the 25 New Faces of Film by Filmmaker Magazine in 2022.

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