AIJING FANG
- Shorts
Nostalgia -
Monologue - Work at W+K
Some stories behind Hennessy Content Factory Hennessy XO x Dylan Wang: Be the Light Hennessy VSOP x Dylan Wang x LeBron James
Work at Battenhall
Nostalgia was my Year 2 coursework on homesick — and my very first attempt making a film from scratch.
Shot in 2022, when covid lockdowns and border restrictions still shadowed everyday life, I wandered through central London with a small camera, tracing that quiet, unspoken sense of cultural belonging: Chinatown felt almost like a theme park of homesickness, familiar and strange at the same time. You understood that it was probably the closest thing to your origin in this country, but you also knew it was not home. Meanwhile, the place you used to call home from thousands of miles away was being shaped by brutal lockdown policies and an increasingly authoritarian climate — so distant that everything felt unrecognisable.
This entangled tension left me nowhere in between.
I did not expect much from this small film, but somehow it found its way to the big screen — selected for the November 2022 King’s College London Film Festival and the June 2023 end-of-year showcase, with one frame later taken out and turned into a poster. One fun fact: filming on the tube was technically not allowed, which is why I still remember the feeling of hiding behind clusters of people as I walked quickly through the station, holding the camera up with both hands shaking at the same time.
‘A tale of silence, protest, and observation from Fang’s experience of lockdown in Wuhan and her arrival in London. She shares her experience of alienation and discovery, yearning for belonging whilst holding on to home.’