So she's this character who exists and is a film character. So film characters are, uh, glowing and luminous and they're perfect, right. They--they were born exactly as they should be. And I think that, uh, that's why we all show up to the movies. Because we get to experience characters in its most, uh, fundamental, uh, self.SONG 00:26:45So what we're pursuing is that, right. We're not trying to recreate the--you know, we're not making a docu series about it, you know. I mean it's so much more about it. So I think, and I think that process is happening for every single character.

And her soul and her heart. And her emotions. And talking through and building this character together. So I think that Nora is genuinely somewhere between part of me in our collaboration. I think she's the center of our collaboration. And she's not all Greta Lee, but also she's not all Celine Song.

This is my actress Greta Lee, yeah. And the truth is like I'm asking her instead to say, to be like, so this character exists in the form of a text. This--this character exists as a character in a script. And I know you, uh, want to play this character in a script.

Well, I think that it's because I am, uh, never quite thinking about the, uh, the characters as kind of an immolation of the real life people that the whole film was inspired by, right. So I'm never showing up to a conversation with Greta and saying it's like, well, because the character of Nora was inspired by who I am, you need to now be just like me. That's not what I'm asking her for.

Even though, uh, the New York production got cut short because of COVID. And then I think that's something that I really learned and I think this is how I feel about every single thing that I write, uh, ever. Which is that like I've always, uh, I can only finish a thing that I'm writing if I know that that thing that I'm writing can teach me something.

I feel like, um, yes. I think that is absolutely the turning point for the career is what, uh, that play is what, uh, changed my career. It got me the, uh, you know, I have the--I met the agent that I have because of that play. And we had an amazing off Broadway run, both in Boston and eventually in New York.

Cause the thing is like, you know, my favorite feedback throughout all of it, is when somebody comes up to me and tells me that, uh, they needed this movie. Because what an honor and an amazing, amazing thing. And it's like a complete dream for not just myself, but the entire filmmaking team that we made a movie that somebody needed, at least once in their life.SONG 00:21:27And, oh, what an incredible gift to know that that's what it is. I don't know. I feel like someone--the Eccles was something where it--the whole thing unlocked at Sundance. But then from there I think the rest of it is, um, honestly building--the movie is building up. And now we're here, and with two Oscar nominations. Are you kidding me.

SONG 00:18:33Yeah. (laugh) Well, and well I think that it's also like, but I think when you're in a marriage too, I think that's the other side of things too. If you're--if you're in a long term relationship or a marriage like people--my audience members who, uh, have--who are in that place in their life.SONG 00:18:48You know, like it's sort of this other reaction where it's like, on one hand I've heard them say, you know, I just actually, uh, this movie made me, uh, really appreciate and love and acknowledge the--the importance of my partner. And I just how much I appreciate them, how excited I'm, um, you know, I feel, uh, to commit to them for the rest of my life.SONG 00:19:09And it just made me realize that I'm with a really, really good partner who cares for me, and I care for them. On the other side of things, I've also wrote the version of they're like, you know man, like this movie made me realize I'm in a very bad relationship. And I have a very hard conversation to have with my partner.SONG 00:19:27So I think that in that way, it's like it is meant to be more of the reflective surface for the audience. It's a little bit more like, huh, this is the decision and this is the life that this character Nora made. What does it make you think? What does it make you feel?SONG 00:19:40And--and how do you feel about it? Have you felt this way before?

Can I tell you. Like after almost every screening, uh, you know, because what's amazing is like, you know, like and also the movie can mean something different for everyone. I think that we see, uh, what kind of a life and what kind of a choice that, uh, Nora is making, or Nora is choosing.SONG 00:17:40But the thing that, uh, it reveals usually in the audience is like what--where are they--where they are in their life. And what they're looking for and what they want from their life. And what they're choosing. So for example, I heard both ends of spectrum from people who are single.SONG 00:17:56Where, you know, if you're single then, you know, I heard both of the actions of like, you know, this movie, you know, made me want to go and fly to another country and try to see if I can reconnect with that person whose I've been really hung up on. And just see if there's something there.

So because of that goal, to find the courage to do that was very easy. You know, it was not the most, uh, scary thing I've--I've--I tried to do. Honestly the scariest thing and the thing that every day I was like, do I have the courage to do this? Is really more, uh, become, you know, making a movie for the first time.SONG 00:16:34I'm a first time filmmaker, right. So I think that there--there is so much fear and anxiety around that, that I think that at one point it just switched over to feeling like, you know, the truth is the--the--I believe in the story. And I believe in this, uh, and I believe in the--that if I tell the story the best that I can the audience will be there for it.SONG 00:16:56And I think that belief was something that a, you know, drove me through all of it.

SONG 00:14:44Well, I think that when you're trying to, uh, make something that is really personal and that pass on in this case a very real autobiographical, uh, element and it's actually, uh, the--kind of the initial thing that, you know, spawn the whole film.SONG 00:15:00Because of that I think you're right. It is very, uh, vulnerable. But also I think that there is some total, uh, joy in it too. Because I get to share something that I personally feel very deeply is what it is like to be a human being, uh, today and now and right here.SONG 00:15:16So I think that the truth is that the feeling of that really did overwhelm, uh, the any kind of like, uh, fear or vulnerability or anything like that. I think that I could find the courage to, uh, share the story because I knew that if the audience, uh, would just hear me out on the story, I think that they would be able to understand, um, and really--and listen beyond on understand.

Like it was yesterday. Like it was--I'm just like waking up from that like right now. Because I think it was, uh, so vivid. It's so vivid to me because I think it's the first, uh, time that it was shared with the world. And I think that since then it's been so, uh, special to continue to share the movie.

My joke would be that every day I asked Greta to jump off a cliff with me and every day she did it.

So the entire story is really happening through the sunrise and sunset of the actors’ faces. It spans many decades and many continents and the scale of it is the scale of a person’s life. And that’s massive and vast. At the heart of it, pulling the story through, is these performances, with Greta at the center of it.

We’d read it out loud and then talk about it. So when I’m talking to my DP or production designer and we have to change the way we’re making a scene, we could always navigate it because they understood what we needed to achieve. It wasn’t just, “Greta has our job and we have our job.” It was, “We know what Greta has to accomplish in this scene because we know how this part of the story fits into the whole script.” We were all partners in how we were going to face the day.

Whenever I run into anyone involved in the film, we talk about inyeon. Obviously, it’s important to the film but we talk about having worked on the film as inyeon: How we are all tied together because of it and how special it feels. That’s how this movie can exist.

I could not have written it without knowing how it ends. I think the first thing I wrote was the very opening and then I wrote the scene at the bar leading into the final walk home. I always knew we were driving towards that ending. It’s meant to be a knife — you want the ending to be sharp.

For Nora, what an amazing gift that her friend has brought her — she gets to know that her 12-year-old self was very much loved, and she has the opportunity to say good-bye to the girl she left behind. And Hae Sung wanted to meet the woman this 12-year-old girl became — and then he gets to close the door. And Arthur wants to know his wife better, so how wonderful he gets to meet his wife as a 12-year-old crybaby at the end of the film. So this visit is only a wonderful thing, it’s only a gift. I don’t see it as depressing; it’s meant to inspire people. We’ve all experienced that feeling of realizing we’re no longer 16. But in some ways, that 16-year-old is forever.

I think about the ways a movie is going to live inside of audiences really differently. I don’t think it makes sense to only inspire tears — I think it can inspire a sense of bliss, too. The movie can mean so many different things. A lot of people see Nora cry at the end of the film, and they feel so connected to her and they also cry.

Editor: Alison Grace

Cinematographer: Peter Wunstorf

Producer: Stephen Hegyes, Rose Waddell

Double Happiness director Mina Shum looks back at what has — and hasn't — changed in this extended interview from The Filmmakers.7 years agoDuration 10:31Double Happiness director Mina Shum looks back at what has — and hasn't — changed in this extended interview from The Filmmakers.7 years agoArtsShare2:27PauseMute9:4210:31Toggle fullscreenShareLinkFacebookTwitterEmailEmbedDouble Happiness director

Double Happiness director

Double Happiness director Mina Shum looks back at what has — and hasn't — changed in this extended interview from The Filmmakers.7 years agoDuration 10:31Double Happiness director Mina Shum looks back at what has — and hasn't — changed in this extended interview from The Filmmakers.7 years agoArtsShare5:26PlayMute5:4610:31Toggle fullscreenShareLinkFacebookTwitterEmailEmbedDouble Happiness director

Double Happiness director

Double Happiness director

Double Happiness

Sandra Oh and Mina Shum on Double Happiness29 years agoDuration 9:24Sandra Oh and Mina Shum on Double Happiness29 years agoArchivesShare0:19PauseMute0:199:23Toggle fullscreenShareLinkFacebookTwitterEmailEmbedSandra Oh and Mina Shum on Double Happiness

Double Happiness

Double Happiness

Double Happiness

Double Happiness

Press Kit

Press Kit

Press Kit

I was disturbed at how my mother and I had gotten out of touch. So I thought, since I’m such a workaholic and the only thing I pay attention to is what I’m working on, the best thing I could do is make my mother the center of my work . . . give her a chance to see what it is that I do."

You grow up with the idea that World War II -- with the occupation and the postwar environment -- is part of your genetic inheritance. One of the things I encountered in Japan was people thinking I was the daughter of a prostitute and a GI. There’s all this history you carry around with yourself, even though you didn’t experience it firsthand

"I learned who she was. I had left home at 14 so in some way, during that interim period, she had retained the quality of a 14-year-old’s mother -- which is very different from the person she is now." "So to know her as an adult was really stunning, a remarkable experience. I never knew she was funny -- it never occurred to me as a child. Also, I didn’t grow up speaking Japanese, and now that I do I’ve found there’s a very different side (of my mother) that’s accessible in Japanese that’s not accessible in English."

an exotic portrait, partly factual and partly speculative,

Raised in New Haven, Conn., by an American father and a Japanese mother, both of whom taught at Yale, Lounsbury grew up with a feeling of vague estrangement -- of being aware of her mother’s "Japaneseness" and of knowing, as she says in the film, that "wherever I go, I'm always different." Instead of examining that genetic split, however, and looking at how it had shaped her, Lounsbury followed a path that divided her from her family and roots. At 14 she went to boarding school and from then saw her parents only on holidays. College followed, plus eight years in Japan and a film career that kept her constantly moving. After all that time, Lounsbury said during a conversation in San Francisco, "I was disturbed at how my mother and I had gotten out of touch. So I thought, since I’m such a workaholic and the only thing I pay attention to is what I’m working on, the best thing I could do is make my mother the center of my work . . . give her a chance to see what it is that I do."

In Japan, when a person is cremated, the body isn't reduced to ashes, as it is in the United States, but instead to a collection of bones. And so, when film maker Ruth Ozeki Lounsbury went to a bleak Tokyo suburb to collect her Japanese grandmother's remains, she found a fragment of skull, a bit of rib and another unidentified bone. In her wonderful new film Halving the Bones, …Lounsbury turns those bones into a metaphor for family legacy and memory, and offers a rich exploration of what it means to be a daughter and what it means to be of mixed blood.

The film is the vehicle for the reuniting the three generations in (more or less) corporeal form. But Ruth, who is “halved,” has a problem with integrity, and nothing is quite as simple as it seems. As the film unfolds, she leads us in an equivocal inquiry into the shifty nature of memory and the documentary genre itself.

Like Ruth, her film is “half.” Neither documentary nor fiction, it rides the edge between the two, searching for a more integrated way of imagining the world.

I got lucky to have Jeong-won and the other child actors. They were very authentic and sincere on set. We built trust [between us] even before shooting began. In every scene, I would ask them questions. There’s a scene where [Eun-hee] asks her mom whether she’s pretty. It’s a pivotal scene. So I would ask Jeong-won, “How would you feel if your mom leaves tomorrow?” [Laughs] I know it sounds mean but I would ask that [to bring out] that mood.

“As a Feminist and a filmmaker, I believe in the code that the “Personal is Political.”

Hummingbird is also notably darker in tone than Recorder Exam

her films transcend cultural boundaries

Kim’s storytelling style is emotive and empathetic.

essentially a prequel to Kim’s later film House of Hummingbird, which features the same familial structure and its resultant struggles, and an older Eun-Hee (Park Ji-Hu), now about 14, an adolescent still trying to find herself.

revolve around the themes of family, coming of age and friendship. Her films are about finding yourself and, despite the many challenges her heroines face, are nevertheless quietly encouraging to audiences watching.

The whole film is very autobiographical. As an artist, I collected my memories along the way and reconstructed reality, choosing which memories to retell and which to remove. You kind of turn certain recollections into big stories, and some into smaller. It's a process of revision, but at the end, “House of Hummingbird” is a fictional film based on very personal experiences.

It’s this Taiwanese director Edward Yang. He made Yi Yi which one big award in Cannes in 2000. A lot of people who are interested in Taiwanese cinema they know Yi Yi. It’s a great film. It’s actually three hours long but you don’t feel like it’s that long because it’s the universe. It’s actually about one Taiwanese family who lives in Taipei and you feel not many things are happening in the film but it is everything.

I got maybe like seven or six funding from all different institutions like Korean Film Council, Busan International Film Festival, Sundance Institute – so many different organizations. But I didn’t get a big chunk of money, so collecting all these small funds took many years. Actually I finished the first draft within two months, but then since this process took a while . . . I was actually lucky enough to work on the script in a detailed manner and I got lucky that I didn’t get any commercial money. So this film exists as it is.

I was working as a lecturer and working on this project. I am the producer too and I had to get all the funding from the government because none of the investors were interested in this film because people like big budget, commercial films. They also think having the main character as a middle school girl, it’s not going to make money so I didn’t get any money from commercial investors.  I got maybe like seven or six funding from all different institutions like Korean Film Council, Busan International Film Festival, Sundance Institute – so many different organizations. But I didn’t get a big chunk of money, so collecting all these small funds took many years.

Genre: Drama / Indie / Coming of Age

<Guest> Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival (2012) - International Competition <Guest> Aspen Shortsfest (2012) - International Competition <Guest> Ozu Film Festival (2012) - Focus School section <Guest> Asian Film Festival of Dallas (2012) - Dramatic Shorts <Guest> Lviv International Short Film Festival Wiz-Art (2012) - Competition Program <Guest> Great Short Film Festival (2012) - Non-competition Invitation <Guest> Concorto Film Festival (2012) - Focus Korea <Guest> Great Short Film Festival (2011) - Shorts Competition - Great Director Award <Guest> Great Short Film Festival (2011) - Shorts Competition - Great Actress Award <Guest> Great Short Film Festival (2011) - Shorts Competition - Great Audience Award <Guest> Seoul International Youth Film Festival : SIYFF (2011) - Competition - Vision Award

Producers: Linda Barry, Eleanor Nakama-Mitsunaga, Kayo Hatta

About the Documentary

I was pleasantly surprised by the number of majority of positive reviews especially since almost all the reviewers had no knowledge Japanese picture brides. The few criticisms were confined to production value that comes with the territory of being a low budget independent film, to whether a certain actor was the best choice for a part or only touching superficially on the complexity of the side plots, like worker conditions in the fields. It’s a shame that Picture Bride couldn’t have been made into a 2-3 part miniseries and delve in greater depth into these side plots like the complicated and intricate matchmaking process, the worker conditions and pay hierarchy based on ethnicity, to the widespread drinking and gambling that inflicted many of the husbands, or the injustice of having all their personal reminders, letters, pictures, wedding dresses and etc. of their families and ties to Japan confiscated by the FBI after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the indignity of not being allowed to become US citizens until the mid 1950’s when Federal law was changed allowing

but this time it was like the entire film, and some scenes in particular, needed extra rhythm and vitality. T

Ever since I started making short films, I have always been work-ing with Yonrimog as music director. She is a great musician and a dear friend of mine.

I wanted the colour pal-ette of this film to convey a cinematic reality, which is somewhat different from the actual reality. That is why we picked pastel colours with a sum-mery tone. Up to the post-production phase, my DoP Kim Ji-Hyun kept on working on colour details. Creating this special universe was the result of a true collaboration with the entire crew.

I never ran away from home impulsively, nor have I ever been on a trip with friends. I craved it many times, but probably wasn’t as brave as Hana. I wrote those scenes, sending Hana on a trip on my behalf, doing the things I desperately wished to do back then.

The world is much more harsh for girls, there are so many things that we have learned to consider as risky or dangerous. I wanted to show that it is possible for girls to go on an expedition at their own conditions, it doesn’t have to be dangerous and they can finish the trip safely, with some ‘miraculous help’. This trip is my gift to all those girls trying hard – and succeeding – to take charge of their own lives

I simply described a scene and a context, and then the actresses spontaneously acted out and created the scene. Then we talked, revised... Time-consuming as they are, these sessions for me are the best part of the entire filmmaking process. I often regret that I can’t fully capture scenes

However, after meeting the actresses my focus shifted com-pletely towards them. They are the ones now going through these phas-es, they might understand the charac-ters far better than I do. I questioned them about situations and emotions, and through improvisations and dis-cussions we tried to find out how they would react. Through this process I could correct the mistakes in my adult perspective. It wasn’t easy to include the actresses visions while staying true to the intentional topics and storyline. Luckily their ideas mainly corresponded with mine, making the whole process much more fun. I felt so lucky!

Ga-eun: So many conditions in life are rapidly changing, making even adults feel confused. I hardly dare to im-agine how much fear and anxiety this might cause among children. What about children having to bear all fam-ily problems by themselves? It makes me feel terribly sad. If it was like now, Hana could not even have gone out-side, she would have felt even more lonesome.

Ga-eun: Children and adults are re-acting totally differently to the film. Children are excited about Hana’s adventures, while parents often feel Ga-eun Yoon about THE HOUSE OF US“My gift to all girls taking charge of their own lives”tortured or guilty. That surprises me, as throughout the making of the film I was only focussed on the children and how they are dealing with the situa-tion.

Though the film ended up as a fictional romance, it drew on documentary techniques and precedents.

Yoon places all her shots at the children’s eye-level, which results in the adults in their lives being cropped out of frame. The director only uses diegetic sound to populate neighbourhoods, with the exact sounds as the children would hear it. Plus, if the children get distracted, so does the audience.

I realized that in order to create a compelling narrative and move the story beyond docu-drama, it would have to dramatize the strongly spiritual aspect of Hawai'i.

Realities of time and a very limited budget also forced us to make other difficult decisions. Because this was the first film about the formative period of Hawai'i's multi-ethnic past, we naturally wanted to tell the stories of not only the Japanese, but the Filipinos, Koreans, Chinese, Portuguese and Hawaiians as well. However, rather than sacrificing depth for breadth, we made the decision to focus on one ethnic group with the hope that PICTURE BRIDE would inspire more stories from other ethnic perspectives. And in order to tell the story well, we tried to focus in on how the historical and social forces of an era affect a specific group on a personal level - in this case, the marriage between Riyo and Matsuji, and the friendship between Riyo and her best friend, Kana. What we ultimately learned in trying to combine history and fiction was that as long as we stayed true the essential spirit of the stories, we could strike the delicate balance and still tell a good story. PICTURE BRIDE is historically based, but ultimately, it is an artistic interpretation of history. Hopefully, we have succeeded in creating a film that stirs the imagination and leaves some questions unanswered, encouraging viewers to find out more on their own.

However, the work we set out to create was not a documentary or docu-drama, but a dramatic film - a film that we hoped would reach broad audiences, and especially younger generations. Narrative film at its best has the power to transport the audience into another place and time, so that you forget you are watching a movie. The challenge for us as filmmakers was to make a film that was both historically accurate and narratively compelling. It took many drafts of the scripts to strike the right balance.

One of the most vital collaborations during the research and writing stage was with local historian and writer Barbara Kawakami. Barbara, who had been doing years of research for her book on Japanese immigrant clothing in Hawai'i, facilitated my own efforts to do the primary research of interviewing actual picture brides. She helped me locate the few surviving brides and often accompanied me on interviews. The oral history process is a long and arduous one, requiring time and patience to develop rapport with one's subjects. But Barbara had already gained the trust of her interviewees, and they felt comfortable in speaking openly and intimately with me about their experiences.

No, I know. And it's - you know, I started making this movie because it was a way for me to explore all of these complicated feelings that I had and explore these questions that I had about, what was the ethical thing to do? And when I started making the film, I told my family about it. I said, you know, is it OK that I'm going to make this film? It might be out in the world. And I don't think any of us thought how big the film would get, you know, the reach that it would have. And in some ways, this is a very Chinese thing, at least for my family. It feels very specific to my parents, which is that they always want to underplay things because they don't want to jinx it. And so when I told them I was, you know, hired by this company - we were going to write the script - and they said, well, you've written scripts before that have not gone anywhere, so let's not get ahead of ourselves. You know, if they're paying you, just write the script. Pay your rent. You know, good for you.

With a long slow stride, limping a little from his blistered feet, Bud walked down Broadway, past empty lots where tin cans glittered among grass and sumach bushes and ragweed, between ranks of billboards and Bull Durham signs, past shanties and abandoned squatters’ shacks, past gulches heaped with wheelscarred rubbishpiles where dumpcarts were dumping ashes and clinkers, past knobs of gray outcrop where steamdrills continually tapped and nibbled, past excavations out of which wagons full of rock and clay toiled up plank roads to the street, until he was walking on new sidewalks along a row of yellow brick apartment houses, looking in the windows of grocery stores, Chinese laundries, lunchrooms, flower and vegetable shops, tailors’, delicatessens. Passing under a scaffolding in front of a new building, he caught the eye of an old man who sat on the edge of the sidewalk trimming oil lamps. Bud stood beside him, hitching up his pants; cleared his throat:

Sprite’s Quest: The Lost Feathers, and Sprite’s Quest: Seedling Saga,

The identities of these makers matter, their proximity to the subject matter matters, the terms of their collaboration matter, and the leadership of the project matters.