Summary A film about coming of age in the US as a first-generation teenager, Dìdi made its Texas debut at the 2024 South by Southwest Festival. The film marked the second year in a row the festival featured a premiere by Writer and Director Sean Wang, who won the 2023 SXSW Short Documentary Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award for his Academy Award Nominated Short, Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó.
Sean Wang: Yeah, we premiered the movie on a Friday, then got nominated for an Oscar on a Tuesday. The next Friday we won the Audience Award, Special Jury prize for Ensemble Cast. I think Saturday, Focus bought the movie, and then Sunday, I was back in LA in my room like, "What just happened?" Dìdi follows a 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy named Chris Wang, who's struggling with early teendom. He's struggling with how to connect with his friends and be a cooler kid, the typical, American struggle so many teenagers go through. How to talk to girls. How autobiographical was this story? Was this ripped from your own experience as a teen?
Once we realized that's the theme of the movie, it's like the different ways that shame manifests itself in a young boy's life, a young Asian American boy's life during that time, whether it's societal shame, cultural shame, personal shame. Then it was taking all of the things that were autobiographical and just seeing what we could do to modify all of that to serve the story.
I certainly got notes and sometimes like, "Oh, what if," blah, blah, "he got a win here and there." And it's like sometimes he does, but I do think it was always about making it more honest and truthful to the moment than it was like, "Let's have him pet a dog so he can be likable." I got to bring Izaac and Shirley, who plays Vivian in the movie. It was essentially the rehearsal that we never got to have on this movie. And getting to work with him there, it was just like, "This is it." Yeah.
That was when the movie really clicked for me, at least when I was writing it, I was like, "Oh, that's what this movie is." It wants to be Stand By Me, the secret heartbeat of the movie is the mother-son relationship. It was like, “Oh, how do we make a movie that's a love letter to immigrant moms, but hidden in this movie about adolescent friendships and belonging?” Sean Wang: She was giving notes on the script. I mean, she's really proud of it.
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Source: TeenVogue - 🏆 481. / 51 Read more »