Like many feature-length directorial debuts, Dìdi (younger brother) is semi-autobiographical, but Sean Wang’s personal background played as much a role in literally creating the film as in inspiring its narrative.
The film, which was acquired by Focus after winning the U.S. Dramatic Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival in January, will premiere tonight at SFFILM, the festival in Wang’s hometown. Both festivals played a role in the making of the film, and Wang has won numerous grants and awards during his journey to the screen, including the SFFILM Rainin Grant for 2022. His work at Google Imaginative Lab before becoming a professional filmmaker also provided him with a unique set of filmmaking tools to tell an extremely specific story about being a teenager growing up on social media.
Finally, Wang not only portrays a fictionalized version of his family in the film, with Joan Chen playing the mother of main character Chris (Isaac Wang), but he also cast one of his real grandmothers, who made a memorable appearance in his Oscar-nominated documentary Nǎi Nai and Wai Po, like – who else? – Chris’ grandmother.
What role has SFFILM played in your journey?
For me, SFFILM has always been the flagship festival in the Bay Area, but also in general. They have such a global presence and it means a lot to me personally before they even supported me as a filmmaker. I grew up in Fremont, California. I didn’t know any other filmmakers. My journey didn’t start with what you could call an independent film. First it came from skateboarding videos, and then from miniature videos on the Internet. It was only later that I learned about SFFILM and films like it Fruitvale Station AND A cure for melancholy and realizing that there was a collective of Bay Area filmmakers and films supported by SFFILM that really shaped me.
Specific to Freezing, the financial support they gave me through Rainin grants, really gave me time to write. I can direct and edit and juggle multiple projects at the same time, but when I’m writing I actually have to think about other aspects of my life, like making money. Thanks to Rainin Grants, I’ve been able to operate the time I would normally spend on commercial work to just put in two months and see if there’s anything there with the script.
And the best thing about Rainin was that each month you were paired with a different industry mentor, so each month I shared the script with someone who had an objective perspective. They handled it extremely critically and thoughtfully, I got amazing notes, I went out and wrote it, and then I sent it to someone fresh the next month, and every month I felt like I was pushing the ball until the end of the Rainin grant cycle I thought I was ready to make this movie. That’s why it really felt real in SFFILM.
When you started telling your own semi-autobiographical story of growing up, what aspects of that experience did you really want to bring to life?
When I look back at my childhood and the things that me and my friends remember, it’s mostly about that period. We describe it as a time when you are the worst version of yourself and you are having the best time of your life. All of our crazy, crazy and amusing stories come from our middle school days. It wasn’t until I was in my twenties that I gained enough distance and realized a lot of things that shaped me in ways that I didn’t even realize, like in a movie when people say, “You’re the coolest Asian girl I know.” ” or “You’re cute for an Asian.” When I was 13 I thought it was a compliment and when I was 20 I thought it was a backhand. But you don’t have that vocabulary when you’re 13. You only know them when you look back.
The germ of the idea was: what would happen if you made such a film Stay with me but it was set in Fremont and had star kids who looked, talked and felt like the kids I grew up with? What does this have to do with history? Eventually, each exercise became more and more detailed. Hopefully, this hyperspecificity is also an opportunity. Because looking at the American canon of films about growing up and teenagers’ experiences – in 2018 Eighth grade AND Mid 90’s came out and Mrs. Bird was published a year earlier — and all their posters are just the hero’s face, huge. The one about the 13-year-old Asian-American boy who actually has a place in the culture, that poster doesn’t exist. It’s a chance. If all these films operate hyper-specificity to look at the genre from a different point of view, we can do the same and provide a film that is completely fresh.
I noticed that Aneesh Chaganty was thanked in the credits and in some parts you can see how you operate the second screen. Freezing that reminded me Research. You met when you both worked at Google?
Aneesh is my dear friend. He was such a mentor, even though he didn’t say, “I’m your mentor.” We both grew up in the Bay Area and both graduated from USC. I met him when he sold the pitch Research and left Google to achieve something. I basically took his job when he left. During my first year at Google, I felt like I was learning a cinematic language that no one else really knew, which was the language of technology and how we approach the screens and interfaces we operate every day and make them seem familiar. , human and emotional and operate them in a storytelling container. I thought, what to do with all this knowledge in a beneficial and fresh way? Well, MySpace, AIM, all of that was not presented in a way that I felt was fair to the way kids operate the Internet. This means that we didn’t want our Internet to give that impression Social network. We didn’t want it to be hack music. We wanted you to hear mouse movements and breathing and what it’s like to sit in front of a computer. But it’s not cinematic when people think about using the Internet. They feel like they have to operate bells and whistles to feel alive and I’m like, I think I know the bells and whistles and that puts [the camera] on the screen instead of in person and using all the cursor movements and backspace keys for drama. So Aneesh and I talked about it a lot. He watched a rugged cut of the film and had a lot of great notes about the most specific things you could imagine on screen. He said, “This scene is great, but once you get After Effects on…”
Your cast includes everyone from Joan Chen to your own wài pó (maternal grandmother), who plays Chris nǎi nai (paternal grandmother). Tell me about the involvement of both of them.
In miniature, I am the happiest director ever. Joan is not only a screen legend, but also a Bay Area legend – she lives in San Francisco. We thought it would be great if Joan did it because she is amazing… and her travel costs would be affordable for us. We sent her the script, she read it, and we met for coffee in San Francisco. She told me, “I would love to do this movie, but I want you to want me to do it.” I thought: what? You give me the luxury of choice? I don’t think any director achieves this. She said, “I’ll take pictures for you, I just want you to make sure you want me to take this video.” We left coffee and a minute later I texted her and thought, yes, let’s make a movie together.
My grandmother and I were always very excited about this opportunity. We have already shot a miniature film together. When we invited Joan, I was reading with my grandmother and kept telling her, “You’ll be in our movie, right?” She said, “Well, if you’re that confident in me, I’ll consider it.” And then it came to a point where it just felt right. The first day when Joan and my grandmother did a scene together, I was completely shocked, because if this movie doesn’t work, it won’t be because of my grandmother. I didn’t want to embarrass her. We were rehearsing the scene and Joan put her hand on my shoulder. She said, “You have nothing to worry about. She is awesome.”
Joan gave the film a special gift. Many experienced actors and actresses might ask, “What kind of movie is this with all these inexperienced actors and this first-time director who cast his grandmother? I worked with Ang Lee!” On paper it sounds like a recipe for disaster, but she saw what we were trying to do. She really created a space on set for someone like Grandma, who had never acted before, to try things and feel unthreatening and see what happened. She stayed on the set, made origami with my grandmother, spent time with her daughter and everyone else on the set. I look back on this entire experience and can’t believe that someone like Joan gave us so much. It was so special.
What was your grandmother’s reaction to all this?
She said, “How did I end up here? Is this what it’s like to have a director’s grandson and you just act in these movies? (Laughter.) But I think it’s very amusing for her. Especially Wài pó, who has some stamina because she’s in her 80s, she’s physically newborn enough to be able to do some of these things. These things she does have never once occurred to her as an option in life. The whole whirlwind of going to Sundance, being nominated for an Oscar, being on the red carpet, for my grandmothers it was like, “What the hell? You asked us to appear in your little films, we had no idea that you would be in cinemas and on these red carpets. I thought, “I didn’t know either!”
Interview edited for length and clarity.
