Sichuan, my homeland. The Chinese call it “Heaven on Earth.” Having long thrived in its isolation, this fertile basin echoes, resists and distances itself from the dominant civilisation of the Central Plains, much as Pluto does on the outskirts of the Sun’s realm. Nurtured by this land, our people hold fast to their everyday lives, with an easy, mischievous attitude towards life and death.

Continuing the Sichuan narrative that has shaped my previous films, I want to use food and feasting as the through-line to imagine and evoke the everyday lives of my ancestors across the long sweep of history, whatever their walk of life – noble or humble, fictional or real – by seating them before a smoking, glowing hearth. It is a comedy, both light and dark – a little eccentric, a little absurd, a little dreamlike – that celebrates the small yet profound joy of living in the face of impermanence.

The film features recurring appearances by the Sun and the Moon, the Ghost of Impermanence, Yaksha, Granny Spring Dream, Fox and Pluto – the holy fools – all here to witness and experience the constant flux of all things and to praise the eventual death of all that is mortal. Though seemingly immortal, even the Sun grows gaunt, and the Moon struggles with low blood sugar. All who rise, fall. But is it not from the fleeting succession of births and deaths that life's endless vitality springs? The myths, histories and foods passed down through generations are, after all, woven from the worldly thoughts and desires of those whose lives pass in an instant.