Captions are auto-generated.
There are definitely moments where I
was like, wow, it's so interesting
to see how church and religion is
woven into the storyline.
Why was it important for you to
include these aspects of religion
in the film?
I mean, it's the sort of thing that
I think a lot about.
I do consider
myself a Christian.
I always say I don't know if anybody
else would.
A lot of people who are Christians
might not consider me that
just based on the nuances of what I
believe.
But it's an idea that I wrestle
with a lot.
And I like stories in which
characters take take their faith
seriously.
But I, I really
dislike stories that are trying to
push an agenda with faith
or trying to like preach
a message or try to
preach to the choir.
Things like that just never resonate
with me. So I hoped that these
portrayals of faith, it works, even
if you don't believe anything, if
you do believe anything, that that
at least it feels human, if
that makes sense.
So it's it's definitely just a very
personal thing.
I mean, I think it's interesting
that scene where the little white
girl comes up to the
family and she starts kind of
speaking gibberish because she's
trying to relate to them and say,
like, this is sound like your
language does not sound like your
language. Was that something that
really happened to you?
That moment was something that
happened to my sister,
because
what I felt in that moment was I
was like, this girl's at least
trying to relate
to the family.
She's trying to be friendly.
It didn't seem like a typical
movie where it's like the Asian
family goes to the white church and
they're rejected and or they're
kicked out of the sanctuary or
something.
So it was actually a very
interesting dynamic between the
words come out of her mouth, but
also her intention.
I think I
feel like a lot of these communities
in the south and
small towns, they're filled with
people who are really, really great
people. I mean, farming
families in general.
I love farmers.
I feel like they just have
a certain connection to the Earth
that I really admire.
And I found that to be the case
where I grew up, there would be
incidents of racism.
Sometimes they were quite horrific.
I've had some bad experiences,
but more often than not, I
felt like the moments in which
there was friction.
It would be well-intentioned.
It doesn't mean that it's justified
or that it's that we
should be fine with it.
But it just was
the friction of people getting to
know each other. So that was one
moment that I always remembered of
a girl doing that to my sister and
being completely proud of herself
that she spoke Korean.
Why did you take such a nuanced
approach to sort of this
racism or fish out of water story?
Because in a way, maybe I'm just
so conditioned to seeing
Western portrayals where it's like,
oh, something bad is going to
happen. They're going to burn down
their house.
The white folks are going to come
and make fun of them and beat them
up in school.
But you didn't really see that in
this movie.
Why not?
I feel like the question us
kind of answers that in a way we've
been conditioned by that, because
that is often the portrayal.
And I know I'm kind of not
interested in that portrayal.
It's been out there.
I feel like often Asian-Americans
and other minorities, we are
portrayed for our suffering
or our oppression.
And with this story, I wanted
it to work in a different way
in which this family is really
defining themselves and being
themselves when they go out to town.
Other people are the other to them.
So when that thing happens
with that little girl, it's not as
though and she is wanting acceptance
from her and wanting deeply to
assimilate to the culture at the
church, she's just kind of
encountering a strange white girl.
And I feel like that's more
fitting with our actual perspective
and experience of things.
When we move to a new place, there
are weird interactions with
the dominant culture.
And I wanted the audience to be in
the shoes of the family
rather than have that general
societal view of of a
minority group that is being
oppressed or
that needs sympathy in some way.
I didn't want this film to work on
that level.