Zhao Yuhui, director of the documentary
May the Soil Be Everywhere, embraces the soil in front of the ancestral cave dwelling built by her great-grandfather in rural Central China. [Photo by MAY ZHOU/CHINA DAILY]
In a talk following the screening of her first feature documentary film, May the Soil Be Everywhere, at the recent Houston Asian American Pacific Islander Film Festival, director Zhao Yehui discussed how she discovered a family history, and how that shaped the film's development.
Zhao's grandmother migrated from a village to a small town, her mother moved to a big city, and she moved to the US — so she had in mind to explore the story of migration across the generations of women.
The journey took her to an abandoned village tucked deep in the mountainous Loess Plateau in Central China. There, she discovered their ancestral home carved out of a hillside built by her great-grandfather.
