Focus Features Lands Sundance Coming-of-Age Movie ‘Didi’
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Focus Features had landed the worldwide rights to Sean Wang’s feature directorial debut Dídi, which won the U.S. Dramatic Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival.
The film is set in 2008 in the San Francisco Bay Area and, according to the film’s logline, follows 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.”
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Izaac Wang (Good Boys) stars in the film, alongside Joan Chen, Shirley Chen and Chang Li Hu. The film was also awarded the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Best Ensemble Cast.
THR‘s Sundance review of the film reads: “The film is a very solid entry in the annals of coming-of-age films, reminiscent of Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade in both its affection for its young characters and its willingness to meet them on their own terms. But its real secret weapon turns out to be the equal empathy it extends toward Chungsing, whose own journey emerges as a moving complement to her son’s.”
The film was produced under Carlos López Estrada’s Antigravity Academy, which is billed as a production company and talent incubator specializing in creating opportunities for emerging filmmakers. Wang was recently nominated for an Oscar for his documentary short Nǎi Nai and Wài Pó.
López Estrada, Josh Peters, Valerie Bush and Wang produced the movie. Chris Quintos Cathcart, Tyler Boehm, Robina Riccitiello, Joan Chen, Chris Columbus, Eleanor Columbus, Dave A. Liu and Jennifer J. Pritzker executive produced.
The deal was negotiated by WME Independent and UTA Independent Film Group on behalf of the filmmakers.
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