Unlocking Stories and
Exploring Family Bonds

“People are willing to share; it’s about how we approach them.” This revelation, experienced by Singaporean filmmaker Wee Antong, came during the production of her 2021 family documentary, Mother & Daughter.

The film, which features Antong’s grandmother and mother recounting her neglectful grandfather and how that ultimately connects to her upbringing, beautifully demonstrates both the diversity and links of language and experiences in a multi-generational family household.

During her interview with OKJ on Qrious Culture, Antong shared her personal experience behind the film and the familiar obstacles of broaching sensitive personal histories within the family.

“We strayed very far away from the original idea, which was meant to be a love letter to my grandmother and mother through the portrayal of love letter making,” said Antong, who added that casting herself in her own documentary evolved during the storytelling process. “It completed the picture, and I was glad that I did as I was interested to find out more about my past, my heritage, and what happened before I came into the picture.”

Mother & Daughter took a bilingual approach in portraying its dialogue with a mix of languages, including English, Mandarin Chinese, and Hokkien Dialect. “At the base of it, my grandmother is a very bilingual person. I wanted to keep the documentary as close to reality as possible. And I think it’s very Singaporean,” added Antong.

Through this film, Antong acted on a curiosity that would be familiar to many youths in Singaporean households. While our intrigue may arise for our relatives’ life stories and traits, cultural and generational differences often make such conversations difficult to start and harder to follow through.

What surprised Antong the most during the documentary process was how her grandmother’s persona was rather different from how she had traditionally perceived her. “I never knew how nonchalant she was. She was quite chill as a person,” reflected Antong, who revealed on the podcast that it was a slow process to build up trust with her grandma prior to the interview.

Antong started becoming more involved in her routine interactions with her grandmother for two months prior to the interview. In the process, she developed a genuine interest in her grandmother’s skill of love letter making, gaining a new perspective on traits she had always assumed about this familiar life figure.

Despite the build-up in trust, her grandmother initially still gave one-word answers during the interview, a response no different from what Antong was used to experiencing. However, Mdm Teo opened up as Antong relentlessly dug deeper for the sake of her documentary, controlling the mood of the conversation through jokes. She added, “I think we have a lot of judgement and preconceived notions about someone when we enter a conversation. But when we learn how to let it go, that’s when the conversation shifts. I feel that the vibes you give are important, as well as being open-minded and an active listener. It really helps.”

While Antong’s strong proficiency in her mother tongue, Mandarin, meant that she had one less barrier to successfully making Mother & Daughter, she believes that a more important factor was her genuine interest in both her grandmother and mother.

Just as the production of this documentary brought Antong and her grandmother closer together, Antong’s relationship with her mother also blossomed into “more of a friendship,” a new status quo that she now enjoys.

While Antong’s mother had always been vocal about her grandfather, she never expected her mother to be so raw and open in front of the camera. “I never heard her speak about her experiences so directly. I was very surprised. So, when the moment came, I wanted her to have the moment and feel those feelings. And let’s go on the journey together,” shared Antong.

Qrious Culture host, OKJ, complimented Antong on her bravery to include such personal histories in the documentary, which touched on her neglectful grandfather and the lived experience of Antong’s grandmother and mother because of it.

Responding to a question about the burden of making a documentary featuring vulnerable personal histories, Antong said, “ For me, it was the sense of responsibility that I have recorded these things. So, I need to do it justice and I need to do it well so that I can safely say that I’m proud of it and hopefully my grandma and my mother feel it is good too.”

“I am still very passionate about this film. I think I made it for myself. It serves as a reminder of where I’m from and that I should be appreciative of my elders even though they are flawed,” reflected Antong, who concluded that all these human experiences, good and bad, are part of the journey of being human. It is part of who we are.