Bora features the lives of the Korean Chinese ethnic minority, an underrepresented community in China, and presents water burial, a ritual specific to this diasporic group. Beneath this ritual lies a simple wish: through water, the deceased may return to the Korean Peninsula, where they migrated from in the last century. Through this deeply personal story, I want to shed light on the profound sense of in-betweenness felt by people who have left the place they once called home.

This film holds deep personal significance for me. It is not just the story of Bora, but also a story of myself and many others who are torn between the life they left behind and the life they have built in another country. Ever since I went to the U.S. for college, I have spent less and less time with my family at home. While I was privileged to study abroad and pursue my dream of filmmaking with tremendous support from my mother, there came a moment when I realized that no matter how carefully I described my life overseas, my mother would never truly share that experience with me. The life I have carved out far from home is drifting farther away from the life I once had. As Ozu depicted in Tokyo Story (1953), the gradual yet inevitable separation and estrangement between parents and children is one of the deepest and most fundamental sorrows in our lives.

Grounded in such sorrow, Bora attempts to capture the inner struggle and quiet guilt of a daughter who looks back at her aging mother after growing distant from her. The film explores the relationship between parents and children, as well as the connection between people and the hometown they can no longer fully return to. I hope to convey not just feelings and memories that are personal to me, but a collective experience that many others will resonate with and perhaps find solace in when watching this film.​