The Wind Sighs is a university project which grew out of my interests in tea, film and travel. I wanted to tell a story about change from the perspective of an old Chinese tea farmer. A friend introduced me to the Lin family, plans were set in motion, and I flew to China with cinematographer Yan Lin, a fellow screen and media production student from Flinders University.

With our film gear in our backpacks, we travelled by bullet train from Shanghai to Hangzhou then into the beautiful Fujian mountains. The eastern coastal region of China had been ravaged by typhoons in the preceding week, and the country was drenched in rain. In places, roads were blocked by fallen embankments and damaged bridges.

It was a challenging project. I was unfamiliar with the language, region and culture, and jumped in the deep end with technical issues, moody weather and shifting light.

In Fuding and the Hulin Mountains, we were accompanied by small crowds of interested friends, family, workers and onlookers. Unexpectedly, they pitched in and helped with translations, transport, sound recording, advice and logistics, and I quickly came to appreciate the willing assistance of our spontaneous crew. In the process, I caught glimpses of China’s vastness and paradoxes – diamond slivers of the country’s beauty, depth, communality and industriousness, intermingled with fragments of its past and poverty, its teeming cities and pollution. These shards of China somehow came together in the story of the Lin family, whose lives are inextricably steeped in the dramatic history and unfurling future of their fascinating country.