Fremont native Sean Wang opens the 2024 SFFILM Festival with his award-winning, homegrown feature debut Dìdi (弟弟)
Sean Wang and a still from his film Dìdi (弟弟).
Sean Wang is a fan of coming-of-age movies, citing as a start Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me, François Truffaut’s New Wave classic The 400 Blows, Lynne Ramsay’s Ratcatcher, Céline Sciamma’s Water Lilies, David Mickey Evans’ The Sandlot, and Eliza Hittman’s It Felt Like Love. But none of those movies stars an Asian kid or has a Taiwanese American kid from the East Bay as a protagonist. For that, Wang would have to make his own film, and he has with Festival opener Dìdi (弟弟).
“When I look at those movies, it’s not about a 13-year-old boy or girl, it’s about that 13-year-old boy or girl and it’s all the little details that culminate in their life that all of sudden make it feel like a movie you’ve never seen before,” Wang says during a recent Zoom call.
“That was the hope with our movie, too, that we can just make every detail sit on top of one another until it feels like this is a story that’s so specific, that feels like the rollercoaster of a great coming-of-age movie. The hope was for something that feels new but also feels familiar at the same time.”
What is Dìdi (弟弟) about?
Set and shot in Fremont, Wang’s hometown, the Sundance audience award winner and recipient of a special jury award for its ensemble, tells the semi-autobiographical tale of 13-year-old Chris (Izaac Wang) who experiences a rocky summer before starting high school. It is 2008 and Chris is locked into social media and is a budding videographer. But as he experiences first love, fights with his friends, tangles with his college-bound sister Vivian (Shirley Chen), and argues with his mom Chungsing (Festival honoree Joan Chen), his feelings are volatile and the sense of humiliation that comes with being 13 is too often present. His grandma Nai Nai (Wang’s real-life grandmother Chang Li Hua, one of the subjects of his Oscar®-nominated short film Nai Nai and Wài Pó) adores him but she can only provide so much comfort to a boy with roiling emotions.
“There’s a very clear one to one of the inspirations being a version of something that’s happened in my life, literally like my family, my friends, my upbringing,” Wang says. “I think a lot of it was sort of looking back at my childhood and things that I know intimately and realizing that the emotions I feel about certain experiences–I think emotions are universal, whether you’re talking about adolescence, adulthood, emotions of shame, love, fear joy. Everyone knows these emotions but the way you frame them and the way to get to those emotions vary from person to person.
“When I think of my specific experiences and me and my friends in Fremont, California, I realized I’ve never seen that version on screen and one that stars a group of friends in very multicultural community in a place like the Bay Area,” he adds. “It also takes place in the late 2000s and utilizes the sort of internet language that I think we were all sort of growing into. And the technology was moving so fast. I felt like I hadn’t seen this period captured accurately in the movies.”
What are the inspirations behind Wang’s first feature film?
Wang began writing Dìdi (弟弟) seven years ago. His original screenplay focused much more on Chris’ relationships with his friends. Wang describes his early efforts as akin to Stand By Me or Superbad. At the same time, he was making shorts that related to his mother, including 3000 Miles, a short documentary in which the voicemails she left him provides the film’s narration, and 1990, a short in which his sister becomes a mother and his mother a grandmother. And at work, he was working on projects for Mother’s Day.
Wang didn’t want to be “the mom filmmaker.” At the same time, when he read over his early efforts on Dìdi (弟弟), he realized there was something missing. Or someone.
“I think I have a very close but also complicated relationship with my mom that is so full of love,” Wang says. “I realized in writing the movie, I got to this point where I really wanted to write about my family, but especially my mom. I realized it’s the relationship in my life, that is the most of every emotion. It’s the most love and the most joy and the most care but also the root of the most anger and shame and regret and protection. It’s the most of every emotion, so I just felt there was a lot there.
“Once I realized it was about a mother-son relationship encased in the trappings of a movie like Stand By Me about adolescent friendships, that was the eureka moment. That cracked everything open for me.”
Dìdi (弟弟) is not just a story about a boy and his mother and his friends. It is also a Bay Area story, joining a family of recent films that include Fruitvale Station, Sorry to Bother You, Earth Mama, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Blindspotting, Medicine for Melancholy, and Fremont. When Wang was growing up he says he took his hometown and its environs for granted, It’s only in looking back as an adult that he realizes how special the place is and how it has come to inspire so many personal films.
“So many things were special and unique, things that I had never seen before in movies, you know, like to grow up around such a diverse multicultural community and get to learn about all these different cultures,” Wang says. “Not because it was educational taught in school, but because of where I grew up because of the proximity of my friends and the happenstance that I grew up in a deeply rooted immigrant community.
“The Bay Area at large is such fertile soil for so many different types of stories,” he adds. “I’ve been so inspired by the stories that have come out of the Bay Area and wanted to be part of that canon.”
Wang says he went into Dìdi (弟弟) with the dream of having a big Bay Area hometown premiere at SFFILM Festival. The festival previously screened two of his shorts, Have a Good Summer and Nai Nai and Wài Pó, and Dìdi (弟弟) came into the world with support from SFFILM Rainin Grant, SFFILM Invest, and SFFILM Dolby Institute Fellowship. Filmmaker and festival enjoy a strong relationship. And San Francisco is just a short ride from Fremont.
“The word that I keep describing in making this movie and our ethos in making the movie was to try to keep it homegrown, to try to make it feel very local,” Wang says. “And so, to come back and have our hometown premiere here with SFFILM, I’m so excited for all my friends from home, my hometown friends, all the Bay Area locals to see it and hopefully notice the landmarks that we shot and just have it feel very familiar.”
About the Author
Pam Grady is a freelance writer, whose work appears in the San Francisco Chronicle, 48 Hills, and other publications. She also has her own web site.
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SFFILM is a nonprofit organization whose mission ensures independent voices in film are welcomed, heard, and given the resources to thrive. SFFILM works hard to bring the most exciting films and filmmakers to Bay Area movie lovers. To be the first to know what’s coming, sign up for our email alerts and watch your inbox.
SFFILM welcomed guests at FilmHouse for a community gathering of Palestinian film and filmmakers
FilmHouse is the SFFILM community hub for filmmakers to work and collaborate, and where we host events that bring people together through film. Last Thursday night, SFFILM welcomed guests at FilmHouse for an evening of Palestinian film, conversation, and connection. The Arab Film & Media Institute (AFMI) selected a short film for the program, and then we heard from SFFILM FilmHouse Resident and Mexican-Palestinian American filmmaker Colette Ghunim for a sneak peek at her in-progress feature documentary Traces of Home.
A Space for Connection and Community Care
Guests began arriving to FilmHouse in the early evening, gamely dodging the persistent winter rains. They were welcomed with food and drinks, and time to say hello to old and new friends before the program began. We hit capacity and settled in. Masashi Niwano, the Director of Artist Development took the mic and explained how the program came together as a collaboration between SFFILM staff and Serge Bakalian, the Executive Director of AFMI. Masashi explained, “We at SFFILM have been processing all of the tragic news happening in the Middle East and navigating ways we can be helpful and contribute to our community. SFFILM believes in the power of cinema and understands that telling stories and exploring timely topics through film is vital. Our mission is to continue to nurture, support, and exhibit independent storytellers. Tonight’s program celebrates two films and filmmakers that are uniquely bold and powerful. Although different from each other, we feel that this pairing is a way to showcase the diversity in stories and creativity that center on Palestinians and Palestinian Americans.”
Masashi then introduced Serge, who told the gathering about his selected short called Ambience by Palestinian filmmaker Wisam Al-Jafari. It tells the story of two young Palestinians trying to record a demo for a music competition inside a noisy, crowded refugee camp. Serge DM’d with Wisam who was home in Jenin earlier in the day to let him know we’d be screening the film, a true honor for SFFILM since it had premiered, “at a little festival in France.” (Serge was of course referring to the film’s award-winning performance at Cannes!)
After the short film, Masashi welcomed 2024 FilmHouse Resident Colette Ghunim to the front for conversation and Q&A. Colette shared an in-progress trailer for her documentary Traces of Home, a personal story where Colette embarks on journeys with her parents to find the ancestral homes they fled from as children in both Mexico (mother), and Palestine (father). She explains, “…the film then becomes this healing journey of me figuring out where home is for myself through the journeys of us returning to Mexico and Palestine.” Below are some highlights from their conversation, lightly edited for clarity.
In Conversation with Filmmaker Colette Ghunim
Because Colette’s film is intensely personal, but feels incredibly urgent and relevant globally, Masashi asked Colette, “How do you as a filmmaker balance what is true to your story and what’s unique, but then also making a film that can kind of connect with people outside and represent a larger community?” Her responses were enlightening and generous, “the thing that is really fascinating about film is that the more intimate we go and the more personal that we go, that’s how we’re actually able to create it to be more universal. There’s this intergenerational trauma piece that is the core message of the film, but especially now with what’s happening in Palestine and the genocide in Gaza, that it has now become a tool to show my dad’s story, and give context to what has been happening for the past 75 years. And that people don’t realize that this is not something that just happened on October 7. And so through this very intimate story of us returning, it is now going to the global space of understanding the context of the occupation and the siege.”
Colette also explained that even in the face of the horrific violence and grief she came to understand her role as a filmmaker and storyteller to be essential and will, “create the long term narrative change that is needed to create the liberation of Palestine and that and the whole world. This is why I feel the mode of film is just so powerful and, and art in general, that it allows us to open up about these things in ways that we wouldn’t be able to if it was just political activism and just protests.”
She also regaled us with tales of guerilla documentary filmmaking, and is looking ahead to completing and releasing the film this year with an impact campaign to follow at colleges and universities. The film is a co-production with Kartemquin Films and funded by Latino Public Broadcasting, among others.
We are so grateful to Wisam for sharing his film with us from afar, and for Serge and Colette’s time being in community with us. Film is our favorite connection point. We look forward to the next one!
About The Author
Justine Hebron is the Director of External Relations at SFFILM where she leads the communications, marketing, cultural, and PR strategy. For over a decade, Justine worked in feature film production on films like The Patriot, Mystery Men, The Replacement Killers, and Anaconda. An interest in organizing and cultural strategy moved her into nonprofit communications where she worked with people and organizations including Tom Steyer’s Next Generation, Hillary Rodham Clinton and The Clinton Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Propper Daley, Mom 2.0, Ford Foundation, The Opportunity Agenda, and more.
Justine was born in New York City, and grew up in Telluride, Colorado and Santa Fe, New Mexico. She received her BA in English from San Diego State University and is a trained high school teacher.
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SFFILM is a nonprofit organization whose mission ensures independent voices in film are welcomed, heard, and given the resources to thrive. SFFILM works hard to bring the most exciting films and filmmakers to Bay Area movie lovers. To be the first to know what’s coming sign up for our email alerts and watch your inbox for what’s coming next.
Meet the three filmmakers who are the recipients of the 2023 SFFILM Rainin Filmmaker with Disabilities Grant.
Directors Vivien Hillgrove, Andrew Reid, and Daniela Muñoz have been selected to receive funding through SFFILM’s suite of Artist Development programs, which provides financial and artistic support to artists worldwide. The Rainin Filmmakers with Disabilities Grant, introduced in 2020, supports filmmakers whose films specifically address stories from the diverse disability community. Ensuring underserved communities have access to artistic and financial support in order to create a more inclusive film landscape is at the core of SFFILM and the Kenneth Rainin Foundation’s partnership.
The panel who chose the grantees noted in a statement: “We are delighted to support these three outstanding filmmakers, who impressed us with their boldness and creativity. With this strong cohort, we are proud to provide funding and artist development benefits to narrative and documentary films, features, and shorts all at different stages of production. We are extremely grateful to the Kenneth Rainin Foundation for their continued partnership in this initiative that supports filmmakers from underserved communities and gives space to vital stories that expand our understanding of disability within our communities.”
The panel that reviewed submissions for the Rainin Filmmakers with Disabilities Grant included Filmmaker and FilmHouse alumni Javid Soriano; Erika Arnold, Artist Development, SFFILM Artist Development Associate Manager; Rosa Morales, SFFILM Artist Development Manager: Narrative Film; Joshua Moore, SFFILM Artist Development Manager of Documentary Programs; Masashi Niwano, SFFILM Director of Artist Development.
About the SFFILM Rainin Grant
The SFFILM and Kenneth Rainin Foundation partnership is the largest granting body for independent narrative feature films in the United States. SFFILM Rainin Grants are awarded to filmmakers whose narrative feature films will have a significant economic or professional impact on the Bay Area filmmaking community and/or meaningfully explore pressing social issues.
The SFFILM Rainin Grant is currently accepting applications for the 2024 cycle; the final deadline to apply is Friday, May 3, 2024. For more information visit sffilm.org/makers.
About the Filmmakers and Films
Vivien Hillgrove, Director, $10,000 for post-production
Vivien Hillgrove is a documentary film director and a picture and dialogue editor in the San Francisco Bay Area with over 50 years of experience in the film business. She has worked extensively on both narrative and documentary films. She is a member of AMPAS, and has served as an advisor for numerous Sundance Documentary Composer/Edit Labs.
Vivien’s Wild Ride Synopsis
After a long career in cinema, veteran film editor Vivien Hillgrove discovers she is losing her sight, catapulting her into unknown territory where she is haunted by a previous loss. What unfolds is an unconventional documentary memoir that invites viewers into the artist’s inner world while she grapples with encroaching blindness and struggles to reinvent herself at age 70.
Andrew Reid, Director, $5,000 for post-production
Andrew Reid is a disabled Jamaican-Cuban storyteller who migrated to the United States at the age of 10. He was an undocumented immigrant for several years before receiving US citizenship under the wet foot, dry foot policy from the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966. He is a DGA Award winning director and MFA graduate from the USC School of Cinematic Arts. His award-winning projects have screened at Slamdance, CAA Moebius, Paramount Pictures, HollyShorts, Cleveland, Pan African and over 70 other film festivals worldwide. He was recently nominated at the NAACP Image Awards, HBO Max Latino Short Film Competition and Best of NewFilmmakers LA.
Iron Lun Synopsis
When a storm knocks out the power to her iron lung, a polio survivor and her sister find themselves in a race against time to find a new way for her to breathe.
Daniela Muñoz, Director, $10,000 for production
Daniela Muñoz is a cuban documentary filmmaker, producer and photographer who graduated in DOP. from the University of Arts, Havana in 2017. Co-founder of the independent Cuban production company ESTUDIO ST, with which she has produced the short films Tundra, El Rodeo, The Rubber Boy and most recently, History is written at night, Blue, and 4 Holes. Her films have also been selected at festivals like Sundance, Rotterdam, Locarno, IDFA, Clermont-Ferrand, Ji.hlava, Bogoshorts, BAFICI, Miami, among others.
Her films understand and explore cinema from the perspective of her hypoacusia, proposing others sound universes. An example of this is her feature documentary Mafifa (2021), which premiered at Luminous of IDFA and selected in numerous international festivals. It had its North American premiere at True/False Film Festival and screened at IDA Spring Docs/Nonfiction Access Initiative in 2023. She also directed the documentary short films Gloom (2021) which premiered at FICViña, Chile, with which she participated in the Open Doors program at the Locarno Film Festival in 2022. And recently finished 4 Holes which had its world premiere at IDFA, and North American premiere at RIDM in Canada at the end of 2023.
Her current feature-length documentary project “Silence Diaries” was selected for the Spanish Academy Residencies for 2023–2024, and won the prestigious Chicken & Egg fund awarded to women documentary filmmakers for the research phase. She is also currently working on the development of several hybrid and fiction feature films. She also participated in the Producers Lab at Locarno Open Doors, 2023.
Silence Diaries Synopsis Silence Diaries is the record of a journey to learn a new language. An autobiographical documentary where the director deals, through memories, with uprooting and hearing loss. It is an exploration of hypoacusia and exile as successive mourning processes.
Stay In Touch With SFFILM
SFFILM is a nonprofit organization whose mission ensures independent voices in film are welcomed, heard, and given the resources to thrive. SFFILM works hard to bring the most exciting films and filmmakers to Bay Area movie lovers. To be the first to know what’s coming, sign up for our email alerts and watch your inbox.
2023 Dolby Institute Fellow Sean Wang World Premieres Dìdi (弟弟) at the 40th Sundance Film Festival Alongside 2021 Dolby Institute Fellow Kobi Libii’s The American Society of Magical Negroes
Created in 2018 as part of an innovative partnership between Dolby and SFFILM, these fellowships were designed to provide an opportunity rarely afforded to independent filmmakers to thoughtfully elevate and deepen the role of sound and image in their finished films with advanced technology from Dolby Laboratories. SFFILM Makers—SFFILM’s artist development program—and the Dolby Institute offer the selected fellows artistic and industry guidance, facilitate introductions, and provide a cash grant allowing them to begin work with a sound designer during the screenwriting stage. Fellows also gain post-production support, with comprehensive sound design, a Dolby Atmos mix, and Dolby Vision color correction and mastering support.
The 2023 Dolby Institute Fellow is filmmaker Sean Wang and his film Dìdi (弟弟) which will have its world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. The film tells the story of the last month of summer before high school begins. An impressionable thirteen-year-old Taiwanese American boy learns what his family can’t teach him: how to skate, how to flirt, and how to love your mom.
“Writer and director Sean Wang’s script for Dìdi (弟弟) captured our attention with his vivid portrayal of the heart and experience of a young boy living in Fremont, California in 2008. And we are thrilled to collaborate again with producer Carlos López Estrada. We are excited to give Sean access to Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos technology through this fellowship grant to bring the sights and sounds of that world to spectacular life.” Glenn Kiser, Director of the Dolby Institute.
“Our partnership with the Dolby Institute continues to give independent filmmakers astounding access to development of sound and image at every stage of the creative process, something normally reserved for major studio productions” said Masashi Niwano, Director of Artist Development at SFFILM. “Sean’s film benefits from Dolby’s guidance and tools which allows him to stay focused on the story he is telling. We are also thrilled to celebrate two Sundance premieres. Sean will be alongside our 2021 Dolby Institute Fellow, Kobi Libii.”
About the Dolby Institute
The Dolby Institute was created to educate, inspire, and empower the next generation of content creators. Through educational programs, strategic partnerships, and direct artist support, we help creatives think critically and creatively about sound and image, unlocking the power of technology to help tell their stories. To learn more about the Dolby Institute Fellowships or Sound + Image Lab: The Dolby Institute Podcast, visit https://www.dolby.com/institute/
About Dolby Laboratories
Dolby Laboratories (NYSE: DLB) is based in San Francisco, California with offices around the globe. From movies and TV shows, to apps, music, sports and gaming, Dolby transforms the science of sight and sound into spectacular experiences for billions of people worldwide. We partner with artists, storytellers, developers, and businesses to revolutionize entertainment and communications with Dolby Atmos, Dolby Vision, Dolby Cinema, and Dolby.io.
Dolby, Dolby Atmos, Dolby Vision, Dolby Cinema, Dolby.io, and the double-D symbol are among the registered and unregistered trademarks of Dolby Laboratories, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other trademarks remain the property of their respective owners.
Stay In Touch With SFFILM
SFFILM is a nonprofit organization whose mission ensures independent voices in film are welcomed, heard, and given the resources to thrive. SFFILM works hard to bring the most exciting films and filmmakers to Bay Area movie lovers. To be the first to know what’s coming, sign up for our email alerts and watch your inbox.
Learn more about the filmmakers behind these SFFILM-supported titles
On Wednesday, December 6, 2024, the Sundance Institute revealed the slate of films that will premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. We’re excited to see SFFILM staff and supported filmmakers on the ground in-person in Park City, Utah.
Securing a spot in the Sundance Film Festival lineup is a challenging feat. Thanks to our SFFILM Makers programs, which include our FilmHouse Residency, the Documentary Film Fund, the Sloan Science in Cinema Filmmaker Fellowship, and the flagship SFFILM Rainin Grant — the largest granting body for independent narrative feature films in the US — SFFILM helps independent filmmakers breakthrough.
The 2024 Sundance Film Festival slate includes four fantastic SFFILM-supported features. These special stories being shown on a platform as large as Sundance empahsizes SFFILM’s role in providing independent storytellers with the necessary advisory services, workspace, and artist community for filmmakers to develop, complete, and showcase their work to the international film community.
The SFFILM-supported projects screening at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival are:
Dìdi (弟弟)
Director, Screenwriter, Producer: Sean Wang
Producers: Valerie Bush, Carlos López Estrada, Josh Peters
SFFILM Support Received—SFFILM Rainin Grant, SFFILM Invest, SFFILM Dolby Institute Fellowship
The American Society of Magical Negroes
Director, Screenwriter, Producer: Kobi Libii
Producers: Julia Lebedev, Angel Lopez, Eddie Vaisman
SFFILM Support Received—SFFILM Westridge Grant, SFFILM Dolby Institute Fellowship
Look Into My Eyes
Director, Producer: Lana Wilson
Producer: Kyle Martin
SFFILM Support Received—SFFILM Invest
Seeking Mavis Beacon
Director, Screenwriter: Jazmin Renée Jones
Producer: Guetty Felin
SFFILM Support Received—SFFILM Invest
Stay In Touch With SFFILM
SFFILM is a nonprofit organization whose mission ensures independent voices in film are welcomed, heard, and given the resources to thrive. SFFILM works hard to bring the most exciting films and filmmakers to Bay Area movie lovers. To be the first to know what’s coming, sign up for our email alerts and watch your inbox.
