One Question: Sean Wang – Dìdi (弟弟)

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Today, Focus Features release Dìdi (弟弟) – the 2024 Sundance Film Festival winner of the U.S. Dramatic Audience Award and the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Best Ensemble Cast. As part of a Global Press Conference day this week, we got to ask Sean Wang a question about his experience at the Sundance Labs and what he gained from it. The film should be in the running for multiple category noms at the Gotham awards and the Indie Spirits. Here is some of our coverage from Park City and the transcript from the question we asked:

IONCINEMA.com: You had the opportunity to workshop DIDI at the Sundance Labs, when living with these characters for so long, what was it like to reappraise them and then refine their DNAs by adding or subtracting elements. So I guess he wants you to talk a little bit about the experience at the Sundance lab, and then, you know, refining the characters?
Sean Wang: Well, I think, you know, by the time I did the Sundance director’s lab, I had already been working with Izaac for it felt like months, you know, like we were, we did a lot of callbacks and and I was pretty, like, confident that I was like, I think Izaac’s the one. But like, we had this opportunity to go to the director’s lab, and it was there that we just got to film two of the most challenging scenes in the movie, and put them up on their feet. And, you know, it was essentially rehearsal time. It was a week of just really, really, really vulnerable, deep collaboration with both Izaac and Shirley, who plays Vivian. And I think, yeah, seeing the movie come alive, um, in that moment, you know, even though we were shooting in like, the woods, and, you know, it was like really, truly make believe, just seeing Izaac on camera and seeing the way that he carried himself. Because, you know, we’re asking a lot of him to be a 14/15 year old, to be in every scene of a movie and carry this, you know, big responsibility on his back. I think it was that moment where I was like, Oh, this, this, this is going to work, like, not just creatively, but again, like emotionally, the responsibility that we’re asking of a, you know, it’s hard for me as a 29 year old to handle all of that, so he really just had the maturity and immaturity, I guess, prowess. I don’t know if that’s the right word, but it was just kind of okay, this is magic, and it’s going to work well.

Set in 2008 in the Bay Area during the last month of summer before high school begins, an impressionable 13-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.

Eric Lavallée
Eric Lavalléehttps://www.ericlavallee.com
Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist, and critic at IONCINEMA.com, established in 2000. A regular at Sundance, Cannes, and Venice, Eric holds a BFA in film studies from the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013, he served on the narrative competition jury at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson’s "This Teacher" (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). He is a Golden Globes Voter, member of the ICS (International Cinephile Society) and AQCC (Association québécoise des critiques de cinéma).

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