In The Wake: Diaspora, Death, and the Emotional Labor We Inherit
Seattle, WA — At the 2025 Seattle Asian American Film Festival, three deeply resonant films explore how grief reverberates across cultures, generations, and expectations. In Sorry For Your Cost, Rosie Choo Pidcock turns personal loss into dark comedy, tracing the absurd economics of mourning and the quiet love of a nontraditional Asian family. the eulogy., from Grace Chin, delves into buried trauma, emotional labor, and the silences between siblings on the eve of their mother’s funeral. And in Days After, Daehwan Cho offers a hushed meditation on loss and resilience in the aftermath of sudden tragedy.
These stories are not black-and-white depictions of sorrow. They are multicolored, unflinching, and—at times—strangely funny. They linger in the emotional mess: the cost of memory, the contradictions of mourning, and the intergenerational patterns we carry with us like heirlooms.
Sorry For Your Cost
Death Is Expensive. Memory Is Complicated. Humor Helps.
In Sorry For Your Cost, writer/director Rosie Choo Pidcock turns a personal loss into dark comedy. After planning her mother’s funeral in 2017—and being offered a $500 urn and an obituary writing service—Pidcock began reflecting on the cost of grief. “This caused me to reflect on the extreme unaffordability of the whole funeral process,” she writes. “Upon further research, I discovered that in 2021 approximately 10,000 bodies went unclaimed in the USA in large part due to the cost of funerals and burial.”
Pidcock doesn’t stop at satire. She makes space for something more tender: a family that loves each other, supports their child’s dreams, and still argues in the kitchen. “Sorry For Your Cost depicts an Asian family that supports their child to pursue the arts (vs. the tired trope of the Tiger parent),” she writes. “This was one of my primary motivations… I lacked those examples during my upbringing in the 90s and Y2K era.”
Still, the comedy is deeply rooted in reality. “Ironically, we ended up shooting the funeral sequences in the same graveyard where my Mom is buried,” she shares. “A pure coincidence initiated by our location manager. Art should never cease to imitate life, and this very phenomenon is the reason I continue to make films.”
The Silence Between Siblings
In the eulogy., Grace Chin explores the rupture of an immigrant family through the eyes of a daughter who’s asked to carry too much. The film takes place on the eve of a funeral, where an estranged brother returns and unspoken history lingers.
“I noticed a familiar thread in the experience of most Asian diaspora women—when it comes to family matters, patriarchy and sexism is enabled in many cases by our own culture,” Chin writes. “Women bear a disproportionate share of the burden of caregiving and emotional labour—as well as the brunt of family dysfunction.”
But Chin goes further, refusing to look away from taboo. “I haven't personally seen many films that touch on the reality of incest in some East Asian families, or the pseudo-incestuous relationships that sometimes exist between mothers and sons,” she says. “This film explores some of this ‘grey area,’ along with some of the fallout: the effect of the weight of expectation on the second generation of an immigrant household.”
And while the material is difficult, the process was meaningful. “It meant a lot to me when both of our lead actors revealed they had recently lost a parent and could relate strongly to the story,” Chin shares. “That experience stayed with me through every stage of this production.”
Aftermath, Unspoken
With minimal dialogue and aching stillness, Days After by Daehwan Cho tells the story of a man grieving his family after a traffic accident. The film is not about identity politics or immigration—it is about the weight of loss, shared across time and culture.
“My long-standing fascination with human beings and family has profoundly influenced my filmmaking,” Cho writes. “Consequently, nearly all of my films delve into the concept of the self and the intricate relationships that surround it. Days After continues this exploration, presenting a narrative centered on family, relationships, and loss.”
Cho is quick to note that his humanism stems not from alienation, but from a deep belief in connection: “This perspective is not born from a personal sense of alienation as an Asian living in America, but rather from the conviction that mutual respect should transcend racial differences.”
His favorite part of filmmaking? The collaboration. “Making a movie is a constant flow of communication with every actor and crew member,” he says, “and that’s exactly what makes the entire process so special and enjoyable.”
What Remains
Across these three films, the act of grieving becomes an act of storytelling—and vice versa. We see grief not just as personal sorrow, but as political critique, as cultural inheritance, and as a reminder that the emotions we are told to hide are often the ones that connect us most.
For Pidcock, laughter becomes its own form of healing. “I hope audiences find permission to be similarly playful even when faced with losing a loved one—finding the humour and levity in it, as opposed to solely darkness and tragedy,” she writes. “Sorry For Your Cost explores the process of funeral planning with an absurd lens, but is ultimately intended to be a soothing balm for those that have experienced loss in any of its many forms.”
For Chin, speaking the unspeakable becomes the beginning of dialogue. “It’s my hope that the film resonates with and encourages audiences to talk about how family pressures and dysfunction exacerbate the issues all diaspora face,” she writes, “including personal freedom vs. filial responsibility, individual fulfillment vs. collective benefit—and how sexism often informs our experience of the above.”
And for Cho, it is the act of gathering—on screen and in community—that matters most: “My hope is that your film festival can become a central hub where Asian filmmakers can regularly connect, collaborate on productions, and foster educational growth in Seattle.”
