Awkwafina grapples with death and culture in trailer for Sundance breakout The Farewell

Per a synopsis, Awkwafina’s Chinese-born, U.S.-raised Billi “reluctantly returns to Changchun to find that, although the whole family knows their beloved matriarch, Nai-Nai, has been given mere weeks to live, everyone has decided not to tell Nai Nai herself. To assure her happiness, they gather under the joyful guise of an expedited wedding, uniting family members scattered among new homes abroad.”

For Billi, however, who was raised with Western, not Eastern, values, this feels cruel. “You think one’s life belongs to oneself,” she’s told. “But that’s the difference between the East and the West. In the East, a person’s life is part of the whole.” That doesn’t make Billi rest any easier, however.

Watch the trailer below.