Kim Quy Bui’s fascination with death informs the haunting Memoryland, and the director even faced her own mortality during the film’s post-production. Bui was diagnosed with lung cancer and unnervingly prepared for her own (thankfully unnecessary) burial while finishing the film. Separated by time and location, the three stories of Memoryland share themes of death and burial, following characters who die, leaving loved ones to contend with their departures. Sometimes the loved ones despair, leading to further death and sorrow. Ultimately, Bui’s stories and characters reveal themselves to be intricately linked by a web of traditions both followed and disobeyed, with change the only constant.