Congratulations to DEGANZ member Julie Zhu on winning Best Short Film for Lǎo Lao Lǎo Le at the Melbourne Women Film Festival (MWFF)! Fellow member Brendon Chan edited the short, which premiered in 2023. Since, it has travelled to numerous festivals collecting accolades, including Best NZ Film and Director at Show Me Shorts.

Lǎo Lao Lǎo Le follows a young boy when he is left home alone with his increasingly unwell grandmother. In the tight confines, he is forced to come to terms with her deterioration.

The short screened in MWFF’s Freshly Squeezed Shorts 2 competition. From stories that honour women past and present to the accidental kidnapping of a gnome, the programme showcased the last and best shorts from the region’s women and gender diverse filmmakers.

Julie spoke with MWFF Critics Lab’s Michelle Huang in an interview about clever titles, podcasts, and (grand)parents. She shared about themes in Lǎo Lao Lǎo Le and her other works saying,

In immigrant storytelling in general, the parent-child, or intergenerational dynamics are a recurring – almost trope – for diasporic stories. It’s something we’re constantly reflecting on and analysing because we come from such different upbringings, perspectives, and values sometimes. It’s a constant negotiation that I think I’ll be perpetually exploring, if not in storytelling, in life. It’s a forever irreconcilable relationship. We’ll never fully be able to see where the other comes from, but we can try. Then there’s the nuances of how we code switch in different contexts: at home with family and out in the world with our friends and peers. These are the themes I’m always revisiting and I’m also interested in elevating stories from both sides of that dynamic and having more nuance in the representation of older generations, so it’s not always just seen from the immigrant kid’s perspective.