Fremont Flirt: Sean Wang Begins Production on Sundance-Labbed “Dìdi”

A relatively new filmmaker on the scene having premiered his pre-feature work at Sundance and SXSW, we learned that Sean Wang has begun production on DìDi (弟弟) — a feature film project that was selected for the 2023 Sundance Screenwriters Lab & Directors Lab and just prior to that landed a 2021 SFFILM Rainin Grant. The producing team behind the project is comprised of Blindspotting filmmaker Carlos López Estrada, Josh Peters (was an Executive Producer on Mutt), Valerie Bush (an Associate Producer on Fremont) and actress Kelly Marie Tran (Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker). If this is unaffected by the strike, we imagine this might be ready for a release next year – Sundance is obviously in the cards.
Set in Fremont, CA. 2008. In 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 is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).
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