Private Project

To remember / 记得

To remember / 记得 is an experimental documentary in 'filmmedicine' that celebrates the life and work of Dr. Martin Thomas (1974–2022), researcher in Chinese-English multimodal translation at the University of Leeds.

Shot entirely on celluloid (super 8, 16mm and 35mm), the film evolved through a year-long process of collaboration with Martin’s friends and colleagues: conversations, solo and group walks in spaces and places he moved through, and darkroom experimentation drawing upon Martin's research into multimodality and archive of toothpaste packaging. The soundtrack centres people's experiences and memories of Martin.

The film mirrors the non-linear, fragmentary experience of grieving. It attempts to embody the emotional textures of remembrance—where sound and image often drift apart, and presence is felt through absence. Martin is evoked in glimpses: the reminiscences of his friends, sentimental objects from his home, his notebooks read aloud, and tactile imprints of his handwriting.

Animals encountered while walking in Martin’s footsteps guide us on our journey as we explore the porous boundaries between the past and the present; between this life and what comes after. To remember / 记得 is a poetic act of mourning—multisensory, collaborative, and deeply alive.

  • Alice Gilmour
    Sound and Original Music
  • Joanna Byrne
    Director
  • Joanna Byrne
    Sound Design
  • Joanna Byrne
    Editing
  • Project Type:
    Animation, Documentary, Experimental, Short
  • Genres:
    Experimental documentary, Artist's film, Psychogeography, Tactile cinema, Material cinema, Filmmedicine
  • Runtime:
    24 minutes 45 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    January 23, 2025
  • Production Budget:
    4,000 GBP
  • Country of Origin:
    United Kingdom
  • Country of Filming:
    United Kingdom
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    16mm, super 8mm and 35mm (still)
  • Aspect Ratio:
    4:3
  • Film Color:
    Black & White and Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • University of Leeds
    Leeds
    United Kingdom
    January 30, 2025
    Private screening
Director Biography - Joanna Byrne

Joanna Byrne is a UK-based artist-filmmaker working with tactile, sustainable and collaborative approaches to film and moving image. She works with analogue film (super 8, 16mm) in a hands-on, tactile way: home-processing, editing by hand, and incorporating found footage, hand-manipulation and physical traces of her body into her work. Byrne is interested in the therapeutic and transformational potential of experimental film and expanded cinema practices.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

To remember / 记得 is an experimental documentary grounded in analogue filmmaking, collaborative authorship, psychogeography and site-specific memory work.

Developed over the course of a year, I engaged in a process of discovery in collaboration with Martin’s friends and colleagues. As well as celebrating Martin’s life and work, I also wanted to explore how grief and remembrance can be experienced and expressed through experimental cinematic form. Framed within what I term filmmedicine, the work seeks to create a space for therapeutic and transformative engagement.

Key to this journey was the use of analogue film, particularly in the direct printing of Martin’s handwritten Chinese vocabulary books onto the filmstrip. This tactile engagement with the material allowed for an embodied form of (multimodal) translation. I hoped to create not just an image, but a trace of his presence—alive in motion, in language, in gesture.

This humanist film invites reflection on how we hold others through language, place, and acts of making, and in doing so embraces imperfections and chance encounters. The film’s structure emerged organically, assembling itself through dérive, poetic voiceover, and associative montage—foregrounding dynamic experiences of living, being, and remembering.