I'm not entirely sure that I thinking about the right movie here, but I saw a short film entitled "First Daughter" at the Heartland Film Festival last year. There can't be too many of them around.What I saw was a very thoughtful, engaging story. It was definitely the best short film at Heartland that year. It was the story of a young Vietnamese girl, and how she copes with the death of her father and grandmother. Although the film was made on a very small budget, it has a great deal of fantasy, including one scene where paper puppets seem to come to life. The movie's plot involves the grandmother explaining the Vietnamese legends and custom's involving death to the young girl, who is still trying to cope with her father's death. (She does this by obsessing about the heart, for her father died of a heart attack. The film opens while she reads her brother's pulse and records it, making sure that he is OK).The film is very intuitive about how a child deals with death. It may not be easier as an adult to deal with the death of a loved one, but children cannot yet fully understand how to deal with it. This film demonstrates that beautifully.Rating: ***1/2 out of four
