On June 19th 2026, So Long, Mom was selected for screening and discussion at the University of Geneva as part of a curated program presented by the 30°NSFF. As the first international short film festival in mainland China accredited by the International Short Film Conference (SFC), 30°NSFF has consistently followed director Wencai Yao’s creative trajectory in recent years. So Long, Mom marks the second time one of Yao’s works has been selected by the festival, reflecting continued recognition from a respected industry platform of both her filmmaking craft and distinctive authorial voice.
Written and directed by Wencai and inspired by her own experiences growing up, So Long, Mom centers on a brief reunion between a mother and daughter during a summer holiday. Through a restrained and finely observed portrayal of everyday life, the film explores themes of growing up, familial bonds, and farewell—seemingly ordinary experiences that nonetheless shape the course of a lifetime. Since its completion, the film has been selected by numerous domestic and international film festivals and has received multiple awards and honors.
Following its screening in Switzerland, we invited Wencai Yao to reflect on the making of So Long, Mom. From the transformation of personal memory into cinematic storytelling to the film’s spatial design, character construction, audiovisual language, and emotional expression, this conversation offers a closer look at the creative process behind the work and the journey that brought it to life.
1. Origins of the Film: When a Dry-Cleaning Shop Becomes a Vessel for Emotion
Q: Beyond its role in the story, were there other reasons you chose a dry-cleaning shop as the primary setting?
A: Absolutely. From a cinematic perspective alone, a dry-cleaning shop is a fascinating place, isn’t it? The white steam rising from pressing irons, the constant hum of vacuum ironing tables, the rhythmic operation of industrial washing machines, the morning sunlight filtering through the storefront, and the lights that remain on long into the night—all of these elements provided a rich foundation for the film’s audiovisual design. In many ways, the space offered an abundance of creative possibilities.
2. Space as Narrative: Finding a Dry-Cleaning Shop That Could Tell a Story
Q: How did you find a location like this?
A: It was surprisingly difficult. I spent a long time searching because many dry-cleaning shops today have been renovated into bright, polished commercial spaces. For this film, however, the relationships between the characters are often expressed through their relationship to the space itself. The location needed to be more than a workplace.
I was looking for an older shop with a sense of history—a place with a small windowsill where forgotten items from customers’ pockets might accumulate over time, and with functioning dry-cleaning and pressing equipment still in use. These details not only grounded the story in reality but also reduced the need for extensive set construction. At the same time, the space had to accommodate camera movement, sound recording, and the practical demands of production. The problem was that most shops that retained this character were located in noisy neighborhoods, with limited space and incomplete facilities.
I’ve always believed that choosing is more important than changing. Whether it’s casting or location scouting, investing more time in the selection process is often worthwhile.
Q: Did you make any modifications to the space?
A: Quite a few. Originally, the shop had two entrances and a large front window, which created very even illumination throughout the interior. While that worked well in real life, it offered little visual depth for cinematography and made character modeling more challenging. Together with the production design team, we built a false wall to close off one of the entrances and added a window with curtains. This gave the cinematographer greater control over the light and allowed us to create more dramatic visual textures.
The intervention also reshaped how the space functioned on screen. The original main entrance became part of the background, while a smaller, previously overlooked door became the primary point of entry. We added a service counter, similar to those found in many older dry-cleaning shops, which directly influenced character movement, scene blocking, and composition.
I’ve always felt that real space and cinematic space are fundamentally different. Real spaces are designed around function; cinematic spaces are designed around narrative. In So Long, Mom, these spatial interventions ultimately became an extension of the relationships and emotions at the heart of the film.
3. Reconstructing Time: Turning Present-Day Wuhan into the Summer of 2005
Finding the right dry-cleaning shop was only the beginning. The greater challenge was transforming a functioning contemporary space into the world I remembered from 2005. Rather than relying on obvious nostalgic symbols, She built the film’s period atmosphere through production design, accumulated details, and traces of everyday life.
Q: Once you found the location, how did you turn it into “2005”?
A: When we first saw the picture of this shop, it already felt close to what the script required. But on site, we realized many details had changed. The exterior had been recently renovated, and the original wooden windows had been replaced with modern white frames. Those updates made perfect sense for daily business, but they felt too contemporary for a story set in 2005.
Because our budget was limited, we avoided large-scale set construction and focused instead on lived-in details. We added bicycles, flowerpots, mops, rattan chairs, old newspapers, and faded advertisements. Even the window frames were treated to better match the visual palette of the period. Authenticity, in my view, comes less from any single object than from the overall atmosphere of a space.
Q: The windowsill is particularly memorable. Was it designed with a specific purpose?
A: Absolutely. We used sheer curtains to soften the natural light and create the warm, restrained realism we wanted for the film. The art department then filled the windowsill with small objects supposedly found in customers’ pockets. For me, it became a display case of adult secrets, but also a window through which the young girl begins to observe the wider world. We aged the signage and every visible detail with a single goal in mind: to create a space that felt genuinely lived in.
Q: Why was authenticity so important to you?
A: Because space directly influences performance. When actors enter an environment they genuinely believe in, they begin to inhabit the character’s world more naturally. Our young lead was acting in a project like this for the first time. She was incredibly intuitive and talented, and I wanted to give her a space she could trust. Once the environment feels real, the performances, emotions, and ultimately the film itself become more believable.
4. Costume Design: Growth Through Clothing and Hair
Q: The three female characters are all memorable. In a realist film rooted in everyday life, how did styling help define them?
A: It was an important part of preparation. The mother and daughter are both restrained characters; they rarely express themselves through dramatic dialogue or behavior. So I wanted the audience to read their inner state through appearance. In realist cinema, good costume design is not about making characters look better, but making them feel more truthful.
For the young actress, the first major change was her hair. She originally had long hair, but I felt the girl should look like a “little adult.” Growing up in a divorced family, she is more mature than children her age and has encountered the adult world earlier. We gave her a short haircut with straight bangs, which made her look slightly older while creating a subtle contrast with her still-childlike face.
Her clothes also shift with the story. At first, she wears school uniforms, T-shirts, and jeans—neutral, simple clothes that reflect her uncertainty in a new environment. As she grows closer to her mother and aunt, dresses appear more often, and the colors become softer and richer. This is not about making her prettier, but about showing her gradual understanding of the female world.
Q: By contrast, the mother’s look remains very restrained.
A: Because she is someone completely absorbed by life and work. She faces washing machines, pressing equipment, and heavy labor every day, so practicality came first. Her clothes are durable, comfortable, and muted in color. Her hair is casually tied up, and the makeup is almost bare, preserving real marks of age and fatigue. I wanted her to feel like a mother from real life, not a polished screen image.
The only exception is the scene where mother and daughter secretly try on a customer’s clothes. That is the moment when the mother comes closest to her younger self. When she puts on the dress, we allow her femininity to appear more clearly. I wanted the audience to see that beyond being a mother, she is still a woman with beauty, dreams, and memories of youth.
Q: The aunt has a completely different style.
A: Yes. She represents the adult world the girl longs for. Since the story is set in the early 2000s, I wanted her to carry the popular look of that time. We referenced photos and films from the period and chose dramatic eyelashes, big curls, and brighter colors.
Looking back, the fashion of that era feels both trendy and slightly awkward, but that is exactly what makes it authentic. To the girl, the aunt represents freedom, romance, and youth. To adults, she is a reminder of the self that has not yet been fully changed by reality.
5. Light and Camera: A Restrained Visual Language
Q: The film is deeply realist, yet the scene where the mother and daughter try on customers’ clothes feels almost fairy-tale-like. Why did you approach it differently?
A: Because that scene is the emotional heart of the film. Most of the visual language follows a naturalistic approach, using light to create a quiet, warm sense of everyday life. But for the mother and daughter, this is perhaps the only moment when they are completely free—free from work, from unspoken regrets, and from the weight of reality. They even dance together in the old dry-cleaning shop.
A strictly realist treatment felt emotionally insufficient. So when the mother steps out from behind the curtain in the dress, we introduced a warm spotlight that slowly brightens as she appears. It’s closer to a theatrical entrance than a realistic lighting cue. Physically, it breaks the visual rules established earlier in the film, but cinema doesn’t always have to be faithful to physical reality—it should be faithful to emotional reality. In the daughter’s eyes, her mother is radiant at that moment. I wanted the audience to experience that feeling with her. Combined with the sound design and music, the light becomes a brief spell of magic that lifts the scene beyond realism.
Q: The camera movement is also remarkably restrained. Most shots are static. Was that intentional?
A: Very much so. The film is fundamentally told from the girl’s perspective. She is not someone who actively changes the world around her; she observes it. She watches her mother, her aunt, and this unfamiliar environment. We wanted the camera to share that quiet, observational gaze.
That’s why most of the film is composed of static shots. Rather than directing the audience’s emotions through camera movement, we wanted viewers to simply witness life unfolding alongside the girl. It also gave the actors more room to perform—sometimes a pause, a silence, or a small movement within a fixed frame can say more than an elaborate camera move.
Q: There is one notable exception: the handheld sequence after the argument between the aunt and her boyfriend. Why change the visual language there?
A: Because it marks the first time the girl truly encounters the complexity of the adult world. Until then, she observes everything with curiosity and imagination. But when she wakes from her nap, hears the argument, and sees her aunt’s quiet devastation, something shifts.
It’s the only handheld sequence in the film. The camera follows behind her with a subtle sense of instability, while the natural light becomes colder and the shallow depth of field leaves the background uncertain. Every choice serves the same purpose: to place the audience inside her confusion.
More than a stylistic change, it marks a psychological turning point. For the first time, she confronts the fragility and ambiguity of adulthood, and her way of seeing the world is no longer the same.
6. Sound as Realism: Letting Emotion Emerge from Everyday Life
Q: The film’s sound design is remarkably restrained, with very little expressive score. What was your approach as a director?
A: I wanted the film to maintain a quiet, documentary-like intimacy, so we tried to respect the natural soundscape instead of relying on music to tell the audience how to feel. In real life, emotions rarely arrive with a soundtrack—they’re often embedded in the sounds around us.
That’s why we preserved the distinctive sounds of the dry-cleaning shop: the hiss of the steam iron, the steady hum of the pressing table, the rhythm of the washing machines, and the occasional chime of the seashell wind bell by the entrance. None of these sounds advance the plot directly, but together they remind the audience that this is a living, working space rather than a constructed film set.
Q: So what was your principle when using music?
A: I try to avoid letting music cry on behalf of the audience.
Many films use score to amplify emotion, but I prefer emotions to emerge naturally from the relationships and the details of everyday life. Music enters only at a few carefully chosen moments.
Q: The final sequence, where the mother and daughter cycle through the underpass as a train passes overhead, has extraordinary sonic impact. How did you conceive it?
A: That scene evolved during production. We had always planned for the mother to ride her daughter home through an underpass, but once we arrived on location, we realized a train regularly passed nearby. It immediately felt meaningful because the scene is about the anxiety of an impending separation, and trains naturally evoke departure.
We checked the train schedule, carefully timed the bicycle’s movement through the underpass, and rehearsed repeatedly. In the final take, the train crossed the bridge just as they emerged. Its roar approaches, overwhelms the dialogue, and then gradually fades away.
That movement of sound carries more emotional weight than a conventional musical cue. What the audience feels is not simply sadness, but a sudden wave of unease. Both mother and daughter know they are about to part, yet neither can bring themselves to say it aloud. I love the power of sound that comes from the environment itself, because the emotion isn’t imposed—it arises organically from the space and the moment.
7. Three Women, Three Stages of Life: A Quiet Story of Growing Up and Letting Go
Q: Unlike many family dramas, So Long, Mom avoids overt conflict and emotional spectacle. Instead, it centers on three women within one family. How did you conceive their relationship?
A: Looking back, I realized they represent three distinct stages of a woman’s life.
The mother, in her thirties, is rebuilding her life after a failed marriage. Running the dry-cleaning shop alone, she hopes to create a more secure future for her daughter, while carrying the weight of financial pressure, emotional loneliness, and the guilt of being an absent mother.
The aunt, in her early twenties, is the freest of the three. Without the responsibilities of family or survival, she still has the freedom to fall in love, dream, and imagine her future. To the young girl, she embodies everything adulthood promises.
The girl, meanwhile, enters the story full of curiosity about the adult world. But as she witnesses her aunt’s heartbreak and her mother’s quiet struggles, she begins to understand that adulthood is far more fragile than she had imagined.
I’ve always been drawn to emotional transformations that unfold almost invisibly in everyday life. They aren’t dramatic—they’re subtle. Years later, you may not remember exactly what happened, but you’ll remember how you felt at the end of a particular summer. Life outwardly continues: the mother returns to work, the daughter goes home, the aunt carries on with her own life. Yet, looking back, you realize that something inside you has quietly changed.
For me, So Long, Mom is ultimately about capturing that almost imperceptible moment of growing up and saying goodbye.
8. Afterword: A Summer That Never Really Ends
So Long, Mom was supported by the China Arts Foundation, as well as the Beijing Municipal Education Commission’s Special Fund for the Improvement of Teaching Quality. Since its completion, the film has been screened at festivals and special programs around the world, including the New York Shorts International Film Festival, the University of Geneva screening program in Switzerland, the Short Film Corner at the Cannes Film Festival in France, the Los Angeles Asian Film Festival, and the Portugal International Film Festival, among others.
Yet for director Wencai Yao, the film’s journey extends beyond festival selections and international screenings. What began as a personal memory of a childhood summer gradually evolved into a reflection on family, growing up, and the quiet moments that shape who we become.
Set within the modest confines of a neighborhood dry-cleaning shop, So Long, Mom reminds us that the most profound emotional experiences are often found not in dramatic events, but in ordinary days that linger in memory long after they have passed. Through its restrained storytelling and careful observation of everyday life, the film offers a gentle meditation on love, separation, and the small acts of understanding that accompany growing up.