An endearing live-action short from director Xun Wang Nai Nai and Wai Po He may appear to be the lightest of all the Oscar nominees in this category, but he had more in mind to chronicle the lives of his inseparable grandmothers, 94-year-old Nai Nai (Yi Yan Fu) and her 83-year-old mother. Old Wài Pó (Zhang Li Hua) as they go about their daily lives, even sleeping in the same bed in their home in the Bay Area.
The recent wave of violence against innocents in America’s Asian community was also on Wang’s mind when he joined us for Deadline’s Contenders: The Nominees.
“I mean the idea is there, you know, in my grandmother. The movie is full of life, and joy, and humor, and farting, and all the things that it includes because it’s full of joy and humor and sometimes puzzles,” he said. “I moved to my house in the Bay Area, where they Now, where I come from, from New York, having lived there for five or six years, it happens to coincide with a time, you know, in American history. There have been a lot of hate crimes against Asians. So, people love them in our country, but especially in the Bay Area where I’m from, and there was this juxtaposition of hanging out with these two beautiful women and feeling the purest forms and tremendous forms of joy and silliness and humor, and then feeling so sad and angry when I see people like them being victims of hate crimes. This is amazing”.
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For their part, the Taiwanese grandmothers were delighted, if puzzled, to be the subjects of their budding directors in the family. They were thrilled to see that the movie about them had been nominated for an Oscar. They joined Wang on the contestants’ panel today and told him about their feelings.
“She said this is beyond their wildest dreams, nothing they could ever dream of,” Wang translated. “They gave me, their grandson, a little shout-out, which I won’t repeat, even though I just did it, and you know, they said… We didn’t think we were going to run, but then our name came up, and everyone around us started jumping and getting scared, and we said: ‘” “Wait, is this real?” Like, what’s going on? And it’s, you know, the American dream to them. It’s the version of the American dream that they couldn’t even allow themselves to dream of.
Wang spent a full week before receiving an Oscar nomination, and also won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival for his feature film. DrID, Which by the way also features Wài Pó. Then came news that Focus Features had optioned the film for a 2024 release.
The happiest of times, but this is a film that has a lasting resonance for him.
“I realized, you know, Ni Nai, at that time, she’s 96 years old now, that I could lose her any day. You know, the next time I leave the house might be the last time I see her.” I still have it to this day, and so I wanted to make something that was really like a time capsule and a container to remember their souls, remember this moment with them, and encapsulate all the different emotions that they feel as three-dimensional human beings – you know, joy, extreme joy and silliness, depression and sadness and pain.
Check back on Monday for a video of the painting.