Nov 2026

The Farewell is based on a true story or, as the storyboard has it, a “real lie”. Billi, a Chinese American struggling writer, learns that her Nai Nai (paternal grandmother) has terminal cancer and has been given 6 months to live. Her family choose to follow Chinese custom and do not tell the elderly lady in order to save her unnecessary worry and so that the whole extended family can share responsibility for her unknown burden. Under the pretext of a hastily convened marriage between Billi’s cousin and his new girlfriend, the family travel to China and Billi spends time with her Nai Nai. She finds herself conflicted between Chinese cultural values and her modern Western tendency to be open and sharing with the truth.