Chinese Laundry

SYNOPSIS

A short autobiographical dance film about a trans-generational British Chinese immigrant experience of trying to fit in. The film retells a story of filmmaker Tala's Chinese family, second generation immigrants from Hong Kong who grew up in UK county South Yorkshire, in a Barnsley takeaway shop, searching for identity and ultimately finding empowerment in being Chinese and British, and proudly from South Yorkshire.
The film is set in a dry cleaners, a business set up by Tala's father when he was her age now, and frequently segues into an escapist dreamscape in the expansive vastness of the Peak District. The cyclical banality and frustration experienced from within the daily grind of the dry cleaners contrasts with aspirations to feel freely Chinese and British and part of the richness that is the surrounding geography.
Chinese Laundry seeks to share its immigrant story as one of many, in a fantastical visual celebration of multifaceted South Yorkshire life. It explores the act of carrying past generations’ heritage with us through storytelling and ends with hope for new ethnicities to thrive.