Sean Wang, a person from Fremont, California, has made a movie about growing up that’s partly based on his own life. The movie is called Dìdi (“little brother” in Chinese), the first movie shown at the SFFILM festival.
Dìdi is like other movies where the director tells a story about growing up. But Sean Wang’s life influenced the making of this movie. He even got help from his grandma!
The movie received considerable attention after winning a major award at the Sundance festival. Now, it’s being shown at Sean’s hometown festival, SFFILM. SFFILM supported Sean in making the movie, including money to write the script and advice from people in the movie industry.
Sean wanted to make a real movie about being a teenager when social media started. He remembered his teenage years and wanted to capture that feeling in his film.
He’s grateful for SFFILM’s support, which allowed him to write and improve his movie.
In the movie, Sean cast his grandma to play a grandma. He also has famous actors like Joan Chen in the movie. They liked the idea of the movie and wanted to help Sean.
Sean’s grandma had never acted, but she did a great job. Joan Chen helped everyone feel comfortable on set, especially Sean’s grandma.
Sean’s grandma is surprised but happy to be in the movie. She never expected to be on the big screen!
Overall, making this movie has been a unique experience for Sean and his family.