About

Amid this sweeping act of control, one sliver of land remained anomalously open: Peace Arch State Park. Perched at the threshold between British Columbia and Washington State on the Pacific coast, this tiny piece of U.S. soil became a loophole in the system. People from across the continent—and beyond—traveled to its grassy grounds to see loved ones they were otherwise forbidden to touch. Once overlooked, the park became a stage for tearful reunions, improvised rituals, and the quiet defiance of human connection. Among those drawn to the park was filmmaker Ying Wang, herself separated from her sister by the border’s closure.

Filmed over four years, The Border traces the emotional and often absurd choreography of life in this temporary “free zone”. Through fragments of longing, humor, and intimacy, the film reveals the strange contradictions of a place that was both open and closed, public and personal, symbolic and deeply real. The Peace Arch—erected a century ago as a monument to friendship—stands in stark contrast to the systems of exclusion playing out at its base.

In a climactic turn, the park is closed in 2024 to anyone entering from the Canadian side—a move without precedent, and one that strips away even the last illusion of shared space. This act becomes the film’s reckoning point: a poignant reminder that even symbolic spaces are subject to the politics of division.

More than a document of a park or a pandemic, The Border is a critical reflection on the fragility of freedom and the enduring tension between the desire to draw close and the impulse to draw lines. It lingers on the unsettling irony that in our yearning to be together, we often consent to the walls that divide us.