Taiwanese-born director Yi-Shan Lo’s latest documentary, After the Snowmelt (2024), which premiered at the 2024 Visions du Réel festival in the Burning Lights Competition, and was also shown at this year’s BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival, is an emotional and visually striking exploration of grief, survival, and identity. 

After the Snowmelt challenges traditional storytelling norms in documentary filmmaking in its own way. This successful Taiwanese-Japanese co-production presents a story of loss and sadness. At the same time, it serves as a metaphor and reflection on the complex nature of love, memory, and the difficult path to healing from experienced loss

The film starts with a poignant and emotional scene in which director Yi-Shan reflects on photographs and letters of her late friend. This opening moment is crucial for understanding the film,as it establishes both its narrative and poetic direction. At its core, the film follows Yi-Shan’s personal journey through grief after the unexpected and tragic death of her best friend, Chun, who disappeared during a hiking expedition in Nepal.

Through multiple conversations with Yueh – who had been on a hiking trip with their deceased friend – the film depicts the two friends’ exploration of loss, survivour’s guilt, and resilience, while also reflecting on themes of gender and Chun’s trans identity. Their conversation about Chun’s identity is not separate from social and historical context. Instead, they often discuss how their friend’s marginalised identity adds complexity to his family’s grief and sadness. In other words, Chun’s death is portrayed not just as a tragic loss of life, but as the death of a trans person – one that, as the film reveals, is tragically perceived in a different light, distinct from the death of a “cisgender” individual. 

Yi-Shan tackles this important socio-political topic with both intimacy and boldness, using poetic visuals, interviews, and excerpts from Chun’s final letters. As Yi-Shan retraces the path she and her friends once planned to take together, she revisits the places and people who last saw Chun alive. Her journey through Nepal with her surviving friend Yueh is both physical and emotional – the steep hills and dense forests mirror the difficult process of grieving a close friend. As the film reveals more, we learn that Yi-Shan is fulfilling a promise Chun made before his death: “The survivour must share their story.” This simple yet powerful vow drives Yi-Shan to honour her friend’s final wish.

The film intertwines memory and reality, past and present, leading the viewer to question the true nature of death and what it really means to “be gone” from the world.

After the Snowmelt constantly raises important questions, while its detailed portrayal of nature – like leaves, flowers, insects, and sunlight – reminds us that Chun may have walked, rested, or looked at a map in these very places. The focus on the landscape shows the director’s distinctive approach to filming. With much of the film shot in motion, using a handheld camera, it captures the wild and untamed spirit of the mountains.

The film’s turbulent, sometimes chaotic style reflects her connection with the mountainous landscape. While it might seem like an emotional distance at first, the constant camera movement emphasises the harsh terrain Chun faced. It’s through Yi-Shan’s reflections – reading letters and revisiting photos – that the emotional weight of the journey becomes clear. Her approach brings her closer to the experience, not further away.

In addition to the director’s original storytelling and camera work, the soundscape plays a crucial role in shaping the film’s emotional tone. The sparse sound design, with minimal outside noise and focus on nature, creates an atmosphere of quiet introspection. This silence draws attention to the emotional depth of the journey and the harsh, empty mountains, subtly echoing the internal silence of grief and remembrance.

In After the Snowmelt, the director seeks to understand and share the emotional and physical journey her friend endured. By immersing herself in the same environment where her friend died, she invites the viewer to experience that same isolation of the mountains with her. Chun’s death raises important questions about societal recognition and the erasure of trans lives, a theme explored in the conversations between Yi-Shan and Yueh. Their relationship, shaped by shared history and the challenge of honouring a friend who was never fully accepted, emphasises the difficulties of grieving someone marginalised by their community.

Through these conversations, After the Snowmelt shows how loss connects to bigger issues of identity, belonging, and social justice. When Yi-Shan reaches the cave, the site of the tragedy, she faces the reality of moving forward alone. The film leaves viewers with a mix of catharsis and sorrow as the director comes to terms with a future shaped by the echoes of the past.

After the Snowmelt also tells a powerful story about love and coping with loss. Moreover, it highlights the exclusion of trans identities, even after death, while weaving in poetic and emotional moments from experimental and docufiction styles.

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Written by Sara Simić 

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