Mallozzi's family seem to share a humor and a warmth, and also a higher education (many are scientists and academics), that made them targets during Mao's Cultural Revolution. One aunt and her family were shipped to Inner Mongolia. Another aunt (a lovely, now white-haired, physicist) was placed in solitary confinement for six years. Her crime? Her husband's brother had once been the lover of Mao's homicidal wife. And so it's gone in China. One dignified relative didn't even make it to be a Maoist victim: he was beaten to death by the Nationalists.

Mallozzi's next movie? I suggest a companion piece traveling to Italy and documenting her father's family, so that the two films can be shown back to back.