Sina, a Cambodian bride living in Guangzhou, China, is trapped in a marriage and a family that treat her as a tool for reproduction. As she tries to escape this fate, her cousin becomes ensnared in the same cycle of marriage trafficking. Driven to desperation, she takes drastic measures to sever her blood ties—all under the watchful gaze of the goddess Apsara.
Year of production 2026 Length 18' Country China/Cambodia Shooting Format4K Digital Aspect Ratio1.85:1 Dialogue Chinese(Mandarin), Khmer, Cantonese
Director Hua Hui Producer Hua Hui Co-Producers Zhuang Tian Chen, Chen Shaoyang, Song Junyi Writer Hua Hui Directors of Photography Liu Yadi, Zhang Chenghao Gaffer Liu Yiding Art Directors Huang Ruifen, Liu Yuchao Location Producers Zhao Jiaxin, Qiu Haocheng, Li Rixiang, Gina Xu Editor Zheng Zhong Sound Designers Zhang Yuankang, Lai Die Production Sound Mixer Li Qili Original Score Sun Kaihan Color Grading Yu Jian Poster Designer Li Li Presented by Yangcheng Evening News CastSarita Reth, Liu Zhilin, Chen Dajie
Director's Statement The inspiration for this short film came from meeting a Cambodian woman along the Mekong. Unlike formal learners, she spoke a specific southern Chinese dialect acquired through lived experience. Driven by curiosity about her language, I spent the night wandering with her and learned her story of being trafficked into marriage in China and her eventual return to Phnom Penh, leaving her child behind after childbirth. The protagonist, Sina, embodies the internal struggle of a mother caught between trauma and tradition. She grapples with the alienation of her child’s identity and her own history as a “reproductive tool,” while witnessing her cousin fall into the same cycle of being sold into marriage. Her story unfolds under the silent gaze of Apsara, the goddess of fertility. Sina’s ritualistic dance is a plea for answers that never come. “The coconut groves I once dreamt of were now nothing but an empty plot of land.” Filmed in Guangzhou, a sprawling textile hub and the actual site of these lived experiences, the project captures the faces of foreign laborers hidden within the city’s industrial fabric. By blurring the lines of time and space, the film explores the visceral conflict between individual autonomy and the bonds of blood. The narrative mirrors the Mekong itself: a continuous, haunting flow of female destiny.
