What Happens in Kuaizi Road
A short film about human connection on Kuaizi Road in Foshan during Chinese New Year, mixing digital footage with Polaroid photographs.
- Type
- Short film
- Role
- Director, cinematographer, editor
- Year
- 2025
The idea
Kuaizi Road in Foshan is where people go to buy handwritten Spring Festival couplets. I wanted a record of the small moments between people there: a grandfather guiding a child’s brush, strangers laughing over red paper, families choosing the words they’ll hang on their door for the new year.
Chinese New Year is when traditions feel most alive, and when you can see how they hold people together in a city that’s changing fast.
How I made it
I filmed the moving street scenes on a digital camera and switched to Polaroid for the close, quiet moments. The Polaroids work like frozen memories inside the moving film, so the past and the present sit side by side.
I graded everything toward warm reds and oranges, for the festival and for the feel of old photographs, and cut between crowds and close-ups of hands and faces to keep an emotional rhythm.
One story, two audiences
I published the film under different titles for different viewers. On RedNote, where people already know the street, it was called Kuaizi Road Through a Polaroid Lens. On YouTube, for viewers who may not know Chinese New Year traditions, it became Polaroids in Chinese New Year.
