Death Education

死亡教育课

Documentary Short

a film by Yuxuan Ethan Wu

Year: 2025

Runtime: 13 minutes

Country of production: China

Language: Mandarin

Shot On: Sony FX9 with Zeiss CP.2 Primes

Screening: 4K DCP

Sound: 5.1

Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1

© 2025

World Premiere

Director • Producer • Cinematography • Montage:

Yuxuan Ethan Wu

Field Producer: Zheng Hua

Sound Recordist: Tairui Zhu

Sound Design: Dave Cerf

Sound Mixer: Guodong Zhang

Colorist: Fu Shu

Logline:

In China, a high school teacher has introduced a death education class for young students. On the traditional Tomb Sweeping Day, they bury unnamed ashes at a public cemetery where they contemplate and contextualize the meaning of death.

Synopsis:

On the traditional Tomb Sweeping Day, families visit graves to honor their ancestors. It’s a moment for the living to connect with the dead, where the words on tombstones tell stories of lives lived and relationships formed. Yet, in funeral homes, there are unnamed ashes—some belonging to children as young as two years old, others left behind for decades. These unclaimed ashes, without names or histories, remain forgotten, with only the date of their cremation marked. Through the ritual of a communal burial, Teacher Jianbo Qian seeks to open up the conversation about death for his students, many of whom are encountering this subject for the first time. The attending students, ranging from seventh to twelfth grade, pick up red bags of scattered ashes, reflecting on the emotions of loss and grief.

Director’s Statement

The film was made out of a personal urge. I am 26 right now, and in the past three years, I have watched friends around me reach an age where we begin to face the loss of close family members for the first time. This has revealed an uncomfortable truth—we are unprepared to confront death. We are not taught how to process the inevitable, particularly in cultures like mine, where death remains a taboo subject. In Chinese culture, discussions about death are rare, especially within the context of parenting. This silence leaves young people without the tools or guidance to navigate grief and loss.

In 2022, I came across an online article about a teacher who organized an annual event during the traditional Chinese Tomb Sweeping Day. Each year, he would bring around twenty students to a funeral home to hold a ceremony for burying unnamed ashes. The moment I read it, I knew I had to make a film about this.

In my mind, this story opens the door to exploring many themes and questions. First, why are there unclaimed ashes? These remains were sent for cremation but left behind, some for over two decades, including those of children as young as two years old. Secondly, there’s the resistance from some parents who prevent their kids from participating in the ceremony. As one parent remarked, they weren’t afraid of the ashes themselves but feared they might bring bad luck, potentially affecting their child’s academic performance. Like any documentary project, there are countless ways to approach this story. But one line has stayed with me ever since: the teacher explained that his goal wasn’t to teach about death through words, but to let students experience the concept of death—something that can only be truly understood through the emotional embodiment of physical presence. The film strives to do the same.

However, the event had already passed that year, so I decided to wait a year for the opportunity. During that year, so much happened. China reopened after COVID, and around the New Year of 2023, my grandmother fell seriously ill. While quarantined, I found myself reflecting deeply on the meaning of death—a topic that was also weighing heavily on many of my friends. There were so many death, and it made me kept returning to this story. I realized that I didn’t just want to explore death as an abstract concept;

In a way, Death Education is a post-COVID film.

I wanna talk about death, through the eyes of teenagers, capturing their unique perspectives as they confront something that adults often avoid. This thinking ultimately influenced my decision to include excerpts from the students’ diaries—the reflections they wrote the night after the ceremony—as the film’s voiceover. Their personal experiences serve as a grounding point, shifting the narrative from abstract musings on death to intimate, firsthand encounters with its weight and meaning. I want to explore how young people make sense of death, grief, and the emotional truths that emerge when we finally face what we are rarely prepared for, for the first time - how we remember those we've lost, and how we carry forward in the face of grief.

Past Screenings

WORLD PREMIERE @ 2025 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL (Jan 23 - Feb 3, 2025)

  • Library Center Theatre, Park City    In Person Premiere      1/25/2025    11:30 AM   

  • Redstone Cinemas, Park City - 6    In Person Screening      1/26/2025    1:10 PM   

  • Broadway Centre Cinemas, SLC - 3    In Person Screening      1/28/2025    3:00 PM   

  • Redstone Cinemas, Park City - 6/7    In Person Screening      2/1/2025    8:10 PM