The Farewell
A film by Lulu Wang, 2019, 100 minutes.
In-person screening. Online panel discussion with scholar Beth Tsai (UC Santa Barbara) & Rancy Wang (Talent Manager)
Friday, April 29, 2022 - 2 pm
Spurlock Museum of World Cultures
600 S. Gregory Street, Urbana, IL
Admission Free
CEAPS and the International Student Outreach team at the Counseling Center are hosting "The Farewell" in-person screening & online conversation not only to create a safe space for Asian/Asian American student communities to discuss the potential opportunities and challenges they may face historically and currently and reflect their own personal journey but also to promote the awareness of mental health for both domestic and international students around campus.
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Film Summary:
In this funny, uplifting tale based on an actual lie, Chinese-born, U.S.-raised Billi (Awkwafina) reluctantly returns to Changchun to find that, although the whole family knows their beloved matriarch, Nai-Nai, has been given mere weeks to live, everyone has decided not to tell Nai Nai herself. To assure her happiness, they gather under the joyful guise of an expedited wedding, uniting family members scattered among new homes abroad. As Billi navigates a minefield of family expectations and proprieties, she finds there’s a lot to celebrate: a chance to rediscover the country she left as a child, her grandmother’s wondrous spirit, and the ties that keep on binding even when so much goes unspoken. With The Farewell, writer/director Lulu Wang has created a heartfelt celebration of both the way we perform family and the way we live it, masterfully interweaving a gently humorous depiction of the good lie in action with a richly moving story of how family can unite and strengthen us, often in spite of ourselves.
