Chestnuts

Chestnuts explores loss, queerness, migration, and unsettled identity across cultures. After travelling from London to China for the funeral of Polly’s former partner, Teddy becomes haunted by memories of an unresolved breakup and visions of John Rabe, the controversial “Good Nazi of Nanjing.” As Teddy and Polly spend two years living in China, grief, belonging, and identity become increasingly unstable. Returning to London forces them onto diverging paths. Blending realism with restrained surrealism, Chestnuts examines friendship, historical memory, and what it means to live as an outsider in a world shaped by conflict and cultural displacement.