Cal Film Festival is proud to name How to Rebury Your Friend by Chinese filmmaker Pengfei Fan as its Best Short of Winter 2025–2026.
Built around a deceptively simple premise, How to Rebury Your Friend demonstrates how a local story can illuminate universal questions about memory, belonging, and change. What begins as an attempt by two men to rebury a deceased friend soon develops into a conflict that extends far beyond a single grave.
When a factory acquires their hometown’s graveyard, the two men return to relocate the remains of their late friend. What should be a straightforward act of loyalty quickly spirals into an increasingly absurd struggle involving local residents, corporate interests, and a community grappling with the consequences of rapid development. Blending deadpan humor with genuine emotional insight, the film transforms an unusual situation into a sharp, entertaining, and surprisingly moving reflection on the relationship between people, place, and progress.
Finding Comedy in the Unlikeliest of Places
One of the film’s greatest strengths is its ability to uncover humor in circumstances that would seem anything but funny.
Rather than approaching its premise with solemnity, Pengfei Fan embraces the contradictions and absurdities that emerge when bureaucracy, tradition, and modern development collide. The film’s comedy grows organically from the situation itself. A simple effort to honor a departed friend becomes entangled in disputes, delays, competing interests, and increasingly complicated negotiations.
Yet beneath the humor lies genuine affection for the characters. Fan never treats them as caricatures or punchlines. Their frustrations, loyalties, and determination remain relatable throughout, allowing audiences to laugh at the situation while still caring deeply about its outcome. This delicate balance between comedy and sincerity gives the film much of its distinctive charm.
More Than a Story About a Grave
At its heart, How to Rebury Your Friend is less concerned with death than with what people leave behind.
The project was inspired in part by the director’s reflections on his grandfather’s grave and by stories of burial sites being relocated to accommodate development projects. These experiences led him to explore broader questions about memory and belonging. What happens when places connected to personal history disappear? Can memories simply be transferred elsewhere? And how do communities preserve their identity when the physical landscape around them is constantly changing?
Rather than offering easy answers, the film invites viewers to engage with these questions through the experiences of its characters. The result is a story that feels both deeply rooted in its cultural context and universally relatable.
A New Filmmaker Making His Mark
Pengfei Fan did not originally set out to become a filmmaker.
He studied Economics at Shanghai Maritime University from 2012 to 2016 before making the bold decision to leave a more conventional career path behind and pursue filmmaking. Entering the advertising industry in 2018, he gradually worked his way from assistant to editor and eventually director, learning the craft through hands-on experience.
In 2022, Fan received an offer to attend the London Film School, an opportunity many aspiring filmmakers would consider life-changing. Financial realities, however, forced him to decline. Rather than allowing that setback to define him, he continued developing his skills independently, creating one or two short films each year as personal exercises and creative experiments.
From 2024 to 2025, he studied Directing at the Beijing Film Academy, one of China’s most respected film institutions. During this period, he also served as assistant director on Girls From Summer. Before graduating, he completed How to Rebury Your Friend, his first narrative short film and the project that would introduce his work to international audiences.
Fan describes himself with characteristic humor as a “triple-none” director: no industry leverage, no major awards, and no artistic pretension. While the description may be self-deprecating, the confidence and maturity displayed in How to Rebury Your Friend suggest a filmmaker with a clear voice and a promising future ahead.
Small Story, Big Resonance
What makes How to Rebury Your Friend particularly memorable is its ability to take a highly specific situation and reveal themes that resonate far beyond a single community.
Questions surrounding development, heritage, displacement, and collective memory are increasingly relevant around the world. Yet Fan never allows these larger themes to overwhelm the story. Instead, he keeps the focus on friendship, loyalty, and the sometimes-comical lengths people will go to in order to do what they believe is right.
The film’s restrained visual style complements this approach. Rather than drawing attention to itself, the filmmaking serves the story, allowing the performances, humor, and emotional undercurrents to take center stage.
Best Short of Winter 2025–2026
With How to Rebury Your Friend, Pengfei Fan has delivered an impressive narrative debut that combines wit, social observation, and emotional depth in equal measure.
The film demonstrates that comedy can be one of cinema’s most effective tools for exploring serious subjects. Through humor, empathy, and a keen understanding of human behavior, Fan transforms an unlikely premise into a story that is both entertaining and thought-provoking.
For its accomplished direction, engaging storytelling, memorable characters, and its ability to balance laughter with reflection, Cal Film Festival is delighted to honor How to Rebury Your Friend as its Best Short of Winter 2025–2026.
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