In 2013, the elderly Grant siblings had an intercontinental family reunion.

The four brothers and sisters, from Musqueam First Nation in Vancouver, travelled to China that year to meet their father's side of the family and visit his ancestral home for the first time.

Their story was captured by director Alejandro Yoshizawa in the documentary All Our Father's Relations, which is screening at SFU's Goldcorp Centre for the Arts on Saturday.

"It was personally fascinating to see how they had to navigate their upbringing and their identities," Yoshizawa told On The Coast host Stephen Quinn.

"Ultimately, it's a family story, and seeing how they negotiate not only Canadian legislation, prejudice, but also their own relationship with their mother and father. I think it speaks to a lot of people."

Yoshizawa says while the story of the Grants's reunion is a joyous one, the backstory is less so.

The Grants' father was one of the over 80,000 payers of the Head Tax, and as Indigenous people, the Grants experienced prejudice through the Indian Act and more which often kept the family separated.

'We didn't know how to reconnect'

Larry Grant, a Musqueam elder, was one of the siblings to make the trip.

He says those past experiences with racist laws made them wary of going, but they were getting into their 70s and found out their father's family's ancestral home could soon be bulldozed.

"We said, okay, we're going. It was almost instant," he said. "We actually never wanted to go to China. I don't know if you've seen Cedar and Bamboo: it shows a lady from Lillooet being, in her mind, deserted in China and treated as a family slave. That was our impression of what might happen to us if we were ever to go to China as youth.

"As we got older the fear subsided, but we didn't know how to reconnect."

Grant says when they went to their father's village, they were surprised how modern and familiar it was.

"It was just not how we imagined rural China would look like," he said.

All Our Father's Relations screens Saturday night at 7 p.m. PT (which is sold out) and again at 9 p.m. PT at SFU Woodwards.

With files from CBC Radio One's On The Coast

Alejandro Yoshizawa (left) directed All Our Father's Relations about Larry Grant and three of his siblings visiting the rural Chinese village their father came from. (CBC)

To hear the full story, click the audio labelled: From Musqueam to China: documentary tells story of Chinese-Indigenous family reconnecting