a queer mythological documentary/film on love 🍊
HEAVEN AND BACK
"A demigod must discover the meaning of love in seven days to enter Heaven and recruits the help of his best friend to interview people for answers."
In Spring 2023, I directed and edited my thesis film “Heaven and Back”, a short film/documentary following the son of the Chinese deity of homosexual love, Leverett, who has seven days to discover the meaning of love through his documentary project in order to ascend to Heaven. When no one volunteers to be interviewed and the deadline quickly approaches, his best friend, June, who works at a bakery offers to bake pastries as an incentive.
The character arcs and narrative conflict is a dramatic and fantastical reflection of the abstractness of love, especially for queer people of colour under the pressure of a religious upbringing, within a wholesome romance film in which neither their sexuality nor race nor religion are sensationalised.
Similar to how the characters are challenged with a non-concrete definition of love and relationships, the romance/drama film will blur the lines between narrative fiction and interviews with real-world subjects by framing the interviews as part of the character’s documentary project.
The film is currently finishing a festival run and can be seen on CineAsianFilms.
