A mail carrier meets an old woman living next to a lighthouse, and discovers that she and him share similar stories, leading him to choose between telling and accepting the ugly truth or telling a kind lie.

“Just when can we stop lying to each other”, as Miles says in the Lie by the Sea, the world we live in is filled with lies. Often these lies are portrayed as vicious and deceptional, but there are some instances that they are hopeful and benevolent. I was in the US when my grandfather passed away in China in 2022. My family was all in China and called me about this when I was still at school three days after the incident. I was shocked and felt hopeless that there’s nothing I could do and I couldn’t even see him for the last time since we were so far from each other, and it was so painful seeing my family, especially my grandma, grief after his death. This tragedy led me to want to dive into the concept of how people react to the death of their loved ones, and whether we should be informed and face the truth or still live in a world where we pretend our loved ones are still with us. In the film, both the main character Miles and the old lady Mary are facing similar tragedies, and as the story unveils, we unravel their stories…