THE CODE OF FAMILY (2022)

Growing up in China, I’ve witnessed multiple families pressuring and dissuading the elderly from using new technology. These families assume that it would be a waste of money, or that they would have to spend too much time teaching their elderly family members how to use the tools. I had to fight my own parents in 2014 to convince them to buy a smartphone for my grandma. Flip phones, or “old people phones” as we call them, are the only thing recommended for them. Thus many never used smart phones or computers. But I feel very strongly that we are depriving the elder generation of a major resource that could be improving their lives as much as it has improved ours.
In 2020, I was inspired by a CNN article about the Japanese programmer Masako Wakamiya, a renowned 84-year-old app designer who had never touched a computer until she was 60. As an Asian filmmaker myself, the story formed in my head instantaneously. I needed to show this journey of how an Asian grandma could become a computer scientist. I want to show the emotions behind everything she represents: how the elderly feel left out as the rest of the population moves on, and how they want more than anything to fix the bond between themselves and their children.
I want to raise this issue now, because I believe that the older generation would have a better quality of life if they were given that opportunity. This would offer another outlet for their creativity, like I’ve seen my grandma utilize herself. In twenty years, everyone alive will be those who have known technology all their lives. The people who grew old without such tools, who have been discriminated against when they tried to learn, will have passed on, and the issue will die out with them. As a filmmaker, the least I can do is to tell their perspective.