[Pictured: a still from Chheangkea’s “Grandma Nai Who Played Favorites,” which is playing in Short Film Program 2 at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival]
Lucy Spicer
One of the most exciting things about the Sundance Film Festival is having a front-row seat for the bright future of independent filmmaking. While we can learn a lot about the filmmakers from the 2025 Sundance Film Festival through the art that these storytellers share with us, there’s always more we can learn about them as people. We decided to get to the bottom of those artistic wells with our ongoing series: Give Me the Backstory!
With only a couple weeks to go until the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, have you made your ideal Fest schedule yet? For those who find the breadth of the full lineup a little daunting, the Festival’s short film programs are a fantastic way to experience the work of a variety of filmmakers during the time it typically takes to watch one feature. And the mix of U.S. and international shorts in each program allows audiences to experience stories from across the world.
As we continue in our work to spotlight filmmakers from underrepresented communities, we’re excited to get to know all the storytellers from the Asian, Pacific Islander, and Asian American communities who are bringing their unique artistic talents to the 2025 Festival. This list of filmmakers includes directors from China, Cambodia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, and more, with projects spanning across seven of the eight short film programs.
We’ve gathered insights from 10 AAPI filmmakers who are showcasing their short films at the upcoming Festival: Mansi Maheshwari, Yuxuan Ethan Wu, Ash Goh Hua, Chheangkea, Jianjie Lin, Glenn Kaino, Jesse Moynihan, Annelise Hickey, Chien-Yu Lin, and Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan. Read on to learn more about their short films, all of which will be available to watch in person and online (and you can catch them all online with this year’s Short Films Pass: Online).
What was the biggest inspiration behind this film?
Mansi Maheshwari (Bunnyhood): It took me some time to realize why I was talking about “lies” in my film. There’s so much information floating around, and you don’t really know what’s true. This made me look inward and realize that we’ve, humans, created this world of misinformation. We’re constantly taught to not tell “lies.” But the people are not “bad” people for telling lies. Your most trusted ones, even your mother, even you yourself, could be lying. This thought reminded me of the time the incident with my appendix happened, and I thought this was the best way to depict my innocent feelings about liars.
Yuxuan Ethan Wu (Death Education): Over the past three years, I have watched friends around me face the loss of close family members for the first time, exposing an uncomfortable truth — we are unprepared to confront death. We are not taught how to process the inevitable, especially in cultures like mine where death remains a taboo subject. In Chinese culture, death is rarely discussed, particularly in the context of parenting, leaving young people without guidance on how to navigate grief and loss.
I wanna talk about death through the eyes of teenagers, capturing their unique perspectives as they confront something that adults often avoid. I want to explore how young people make sense of death, grief, and the emotional truths that emerge when we finally face what we are rarely prepared for for the first time — how we remember those we’ve lost and how we carry forward in the face of grief.
Ash Goh Hua (Full Month): The inspiration for the short narrative film Full Month was a dream that I had in which my brother had a baby. In the dream, in the instant of finding out that news, I left New York and returned to Singapore to be an aunt. In my real life, when I departed Singapore in 2016, it was a move I had always intended to make since I was a teenager, a move that I had thought was permanent, largely because of my difficult relationship with my mother. So why, in my dream, was the decision to return home to Singapore unequivocal? Instantaneous. There was no doubt in my heart — I am going to be an aunt in my family. The short explores this: It is a reflection of my real life and relationships, spurred by a yearning I now feel to return home.
Chheangkea (Grandmai Nai Who Played Favorites): My Grandma Nai. She was often irritated and scolded anyone who did anything annoying in front of her. Grandma Nai also played favorites, and I was hers. Growing up, I knew I wasn’t like most boys, so I clung tightly to my grandma because, by her side, I was protected.
Jianjie Lin (Hippopotami): While preparing for my feature film, I read a piece of news about a couple’s secret business in a northern Chinese town. I felt an immediate sense of absurdity that I could not shake off. Then an image popped up in my head one day: a little girl staring at the deadpan, dull, wrinkly and sagging face of a hippopotamus. Then the hippo opens its mouth wide, revealing strong, dangerous teeth. The girl wonders whether it’s going to eat her, or is it yawning. I see a curious gaze trying to penetrate the deceivingly docile look of reality — a reality kept obscure by the parents. The antitheses of the real and the absurd, the innocent and the obscene, the elegance of high art and the ugliness of the transaction, inspires me to approach this story about lost innocence with a darkly humorous tone.
Glenn Kaino (Hoops, Hopes & Dreams): I was eating at a gala for the Tommie Smith Youth Initiative, a nonprofit that grants scholarships to young student athletes, when I heard Ambassador Andrew Young tell his story of connecting with young people through basketball with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I dropped my fork, jumped out of my chair, and scrambled through a cluster of guests to reach him and introduce myself and ask him if I could follow up with him.
Knowing that we are living through a divided society in search of opportunities that bring us together, I recognized the generosity and power of the strategy he outlined, the seldom known fact that some of our civil rights heroes would take to the courts in order to meet their audience where they were. This seemed like a vital story to tell.
Jesse Moynihan (Jesus 2): My fear of dying and the fear of my friends’ and family’s inevitable deaths.
Annelise Hickey (Stranger, Brother.): The short was inspired by a trip I took to Aotearoa, where I reunited with my half brother after 12 years apart. I left that meeting realizing how much I had missed seeing him grow up and how deeply I wanted to be part of his life.
Chien-Yu Lin (Suo Jiang): Growing up, there was a locksmith in my life who often shared his life stories with me whenever I went to him for keys. Now that he no longer wants to continue his locksmith work, I want to use this opportunity to explore what kind of decisions a middle-aged man facing a turning point in life would make. This is how the film came to be.
Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan (Vox Humana): Grendel by John Gardner, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, and all of the Native land defenders throughout Philippine history who were silenced and are still being silenced to this day.
Films are lasting artistic legacies; what do you want yours to say?
Goh: Films like Oscar-winning Everything Everywhere All At Once and Turning Red have popularized the immigrant-parent-apologizing genre and articulated a collective Asian American desire. I want to extend this into an international understanding, one that rejects the Americanisms inherent in this fantasy. Full Month continues this phenomenon by conveying a yearning between a generation separated, specifically a chasm created by the Asian economic leap in the ’80s–’00s and the growth of a traditionally conservative and collective-based society influenced by modernity; it imagines a deeply Chinese attempt at healing within Singaporean society, one that will look vastly different compared to dominant (Western) discourse and contains multitudes of culturally specific nuances, one that considers each person as products of their epoch, of a specific sociality and society that is not the U.S. In this story, the emphasis is redirected onto the intent of making legible the continued efforts of each person attempting over and over again to enact “family” and express love the ways they know how. I know that in my personal journey of seeking healing and closure with my family, it has taken me years to arrive at this point to be able to see them for being a product of their time, as am I.
Asian parents will cut you a plate of fruit after an argument, hand it to you in silence; this plate of cut fruit might not be the “healing” I am chasing, but at the very least, I am learning to appreciate what this action signifies for them. I do not have answers. Instead, I capture in this film my yearning for reconnection with my family, my country, my society, attempts to face the tensions I had purposefully escaped, and all of the difficulties and complexities that entails.
Chheangkea: With this piece, I want to examine the possibilities of being Queer in a society full of set paths and traditions. Growing up, my experiences as a Cambodian son and a Queer boy never made sense. So in this film, I want to find a way for a Queer individual to exist in a place where there are loved ones who fully see them for who they are.
Kaino: We would like for this film to highlight how teams can unite around a shared mission to drive meaningful, positive change.
Hickey: Families come in many shapes and forms — whether a chosen family, a traditional nuclear unit, or a larger tribe. The relationships within these families are often complex, ranging from solid to strained, close to distant. I wanted to explore the fragility that defines our connection to family through this film. Regardless of what our family looks like, deep down, we all seek a sense of belonging.
As we navigate our paths in search of identity, it’s easy to close doors behind us, often unaware of who or what we’re leaving behind. Yet, these doors are never truly locked; they can always be reopened and reconnection is always possible.
Eblahan: Indigenous folks around the world have been stewards of the land for a long time, and yet our voices are being silenced to this day. The film aims to bring attention to the act of listening. Not just to the voice of the land, but also to the silenced voices of the ones who have been fighting for it.
Describe who you want this film to reach.
Goh: Singaporeans. Immigrants. The Asian diaspora. Those who have experienced complex family dynamics. Anybody who feels like home is just that bit harder to grasp.
Moynihan: People who enjoy world-building and metaphorical violence in their cartoons.
Hickey: I hope our Polynesian community sees themselves or people they know reflected on screen. Given the storyline, we want this film to reach millennials and Gen Z folk who are on a similar journey back to family or their roots. I know there’s a lot of us out there, trying to find our place… you’re not alone.
Tell us an anecdote about casting or working with your actors.
Goh: This is my first narrative film; I came from a documentary background. In telling a story inspired by my own experiences and my own family dynamics, I decided to pull from my documentary skill set and cast my dad as the father character in the film. In working with him, I realized that my responsibility on set as a director was to create the conditions in which he could be himself — and I know how that looks like, because he is my dad.
Moynihan: It was a joy to sit in a sounds studio and watch Steve Little (from Eastbound & Down) make disgusting orgasm sounds for 10 minutes.
Your favorite part of making the film? Memories from the process?
Maheshwari: My favorite part of the film was working with the sound designer. We decided to use only one karaoke mic to record all the Foley sounds to match the minimal style of the animation. Just like the technique of the animation film came to me fully [from] my experimenting, so did the sound. We laughed a lot, and we worked really hard. It was the best time!
Chheangkea: Being on this set was the single greatest week of my life. I was doing what I love with an amazing group of collaborators and got to say hello to my grandma at her tomb every morning since it was the location of our shoot. There were many challenges and monsoon rain to schedule around, but, as a director making this kind of film, I knew I had to come to set light and happy and ready to have fun for the joy to fully translate onto the screen. So I let myself go and feel that joy.
J. Lin: Working with the actors. They are a lot of fun. The actor is a pro in driving. He was behind the wheel of all the moving shots.
Eblahan: Playing a broken piano in an abandoned hotel while we waited for our time to film.
What was a big challenge you faced while making this film?
Wu: Editing! We aimed to create a meditative film that doesn’t rely on information or dialogue. It was a long process of sculpting the transition from the abstract to the personal and finding the true emotional tone of each moment. From finishing filming to submitting to Sundance, the process spanned more than a year of on-and-off editing, watching, and rewatching.
Goh: I somehow had way-off preconceived notions of what editing a narrative short would be like. Coming from the nonfiction world, where editing is a long process where one essentially writes the story, I thought that because I am arriving at the edit bay with a script that it would be a straightforward process. I told my producer the day we wrapped that I’ll have an assembly cut for her in the next two days. Sweet, sweet Joel [Neo] gave me a funny look but didn’t argue. I ended up managing to throw it together in three days, and it was obviously terrible. I remember arriving at Sean [Weiner’s] and [my] first edit session in emotional shambles, thinking how much of a failure I was, how the film just genuinely sucked, why did anyone give me money to make this, and why my crew believed in me/the project. Sean had to talk me off the ledge. It’s funny to look back on now, but I really felt like the world was ending then.
Kaino: The biggest challenge and heartbreak was losing our producer, Michael Latt, in the middle of production. He was tragically killed after setting up our entire team of producers and financiers and working to create the road map of what we eventually finished. While we will never fully recover from his loss, we have channeled the spirit of his soul and our commitment to his legacy to create the best work we could make.
Hickey: I was 10 weeks pregnant when we shot Stranger, Brother., and I had only told my producers. My morning sickness was pretty severe, and I felt underprepared as a director — at least by my own standards — when I walked onto set that first day. I was working hard to hide my pregnancy while feeling like I should have done more in pre-production.
But as we got rolling and further into the script, the story began to unfold. My collaborators truly stepped up, and I realized I needed to let go of some of my preconceived ideas. I had to discover the film as we shot it and, later, during post-production. It taught me a valuable lesson about staying flexible and open to the creative process rather than clinging too tightly to initial plans.
C. Lin: The biggest challenge in making this film was time. With three storylines and multiple locations, shooting over seven scenes — including the mountains, seaside, home, locksmith shop, and various other minor settings — within just four days was quite a challenge. If the weather didn’t cooperate, it could have posed significant problems for the film. Fortunately, the shooting process went much smoother than expected. Interestingly, all four days of filming were sunny, but the moment we wrapped up, it started pouring rain.
Why does this story need to be told now?
Chheangkea: So much of Queer or Cambodian cinema deals with violence, darkness, and fear. I want to contribute a film that places lightness, peculiarity, and joy first. The grandmother in this film might not be a realistic depiction of a living Cambodian grandmother, but in her spirit, she is an embodiment of unconditional love — the kind that instills hope.
Kaino: We are living in a moment where sports are more popular than ever and politics are as divided as they ever have been. This film is about the possibility of using nontraditional strategies to unify people from different walks of life, and we feel there is a very deep relevancy to helping suggest new ideas of how we might bring people together.
Moynihan: I don’t think I’m qualified to know what stories “need” to be told now, but I felt like I was seeing a lot of articles coming out from the tech billionaire sector about life extension and transferring consciousness to the cloud as some sort of futurist answer to death. I imagined my consciousness being contained on a server and having to pay renewal fees to Google to keep me alive. It felt like a nightmare being posed as a beautiful ideal. So I wanted to explore that.
Hickey: I haven’t seen many Polynesian Australian characters or stories that ring true to my own experience living in Naarm (Melbourne, Australia). While there are a lot of contemporary stories/films coming out of Aotearoa and Hawai‘i, the Polynesian experience is still something I think audiences are keen to see more of… myself included.
Eblahan: Telling Filipino stories from the perspective of the northern Indigenous tribes is very important to me. We rarely are featured in cinema — locally and globally — yet our culture has been such a big player in world history and not much has been told about it. I want to bring awareness to my people, our existence, and, most importantly, our fight today regarding the protection of our Native lands, our environment, and the lives of our Native leaders that are being silenced to this day.
Tell us why and how you got into filmmaking.
Maheshwari: It was a slow and steady process. I first got into fashion design, then illustration, then animation, then directing animation, and now, finally, I can say I am filmmaking.
J. Lin: I was going to be a biologist. But I wanted to try something different with my life. Film seems to be the furthest from biology. I thought, why not? If it didn’t work, I [would] go back. I’m glad I didn’t.
Why is filmmaking important to you? Why is it important to the world?
Chheangkea: I knew I was Queer before I knew filmmaking was even possible for someone like me. Like many others, loneliness was a part of my Queer experience growing up. I spent so many late nights sneaking onto my family’s shared laptop to watch Queer films in secret and erasing the browsing history afterward. Film can sometimes speak to our deepest vulnerabilities before we could even utter a word about them to our loved ones. I find the level of possibilities that film has as a tool to share our humanity with one another very magical, and, frankly, vital.
C. Lin: For me, film is the best way to share different cultures and ways of life. When watching a movie, the audience’s critical perspective and individualism tend to diminish while empathy increases. I believe this is a skill that is increasingly lacking in our world — understanding and acceptance. In a fictional film, you can connect with people from different cultural and family backgrounds, and ideally we should be able to do the same in real life.
If you weren’t a filmmaker, what would you be doing?
Wu: I would probably work in tech 🙂 I love technology.
J. Lin: Biologist. And probably also a writer in my free time.
Kaino: If I wasn’t telling stories through film, I’d be telling stories in a museum, and if I wasn’t telling stories in a museum, I’d be telling them on the corner in my neighborhood.
Moynihan: I would just make comics, I guess. And I would be putting a lot more effort into my Patreon.
Eblahan: Either a priest or a musician! Or both 🙂
What is something that all filmmakers should keep in mind in order to become better cinematic storytellers?
J. Lin: Listen carefully, especially when you have things to say.
Hickey: Find your voice. What is it you want to say to the world through your filmmaking? Sounds pretty basic, but it’s true. If you don’t feel connected to a story or understand its layers and complexities, it’s hard to make an authentic film — and audiences can see right through that.
Also, surround yourself with people who will challenge you. Whether it’s your [director of photography] questioning a location choice or an editor presenting a cut you hadn’t imagined, it’s valuable to work with those who aren’t afraid to push back and challenge your ideas. It will either improve your film or strengthen your conviction in your vision.
C. Lin: Be honest.
Who are your creative heroes?
Wu: Terrence Malick, Werner Herzog, John Gianvito, Natalia Almada, Srđan Keča, Jamie Meltzer
Goh: Edward Yang, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Tsai Ming-Liang, Sho Miyake, Abbas Kiarostami, Hirokazu Kore-eda
Chheangkea: Todd Haynes, Paul Thomas Anderson, Haruki Murakami
Moynihan: Alejandro Jodorowsky, David Lynch, Hayao Miyazaki, Masaaki Yuasa, Sun Ra, Manly P. Hall, Jean Cocteau, Christy Karacas, Peter Chung… that’s all I can think of at the moment.
C. Lin: Too many. Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Christopher Nolan, Bohumil Hrabal, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Edward Yang, Michael Sowa, Nils Frahm…
Eblahan: Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Mati Diop, Dong Abay
What three things do you always have in your refrigerator?
Wu: Eggs, soda drinks, and film rolls
Kaino: Ponzu sauce, Tapatío, and butter
C. Lin: Apple juice, apples, chili
Eblahan: Spiced coconut vinegar, pork belly, leftover rice
What was the last thing you saw that you wish you made?
Maheshwari: The Love Witch by Anna Biller
Wu: Gunda by Victor Kossakovsky
Goh: Perfect Days
Moynihan: The Boy and the Heron
Hickey: Molly Manning Walker’s How to Have Sex left me sobbing. The script and performances felt so real. That film left a lasting impression on me.
Which of your personal characteristics contributes most to your success as a storyteller?
Chheangkea: Longing
J. Lin: I came from a science background, so there is always a sense of order I try to bring into the otherwise intuitive and often chaotic creative process.
Tell us about your history with Sundance Institute. When was the first time you engaged with us? Why did you want your film to screen with us?
Wu: The first thing I do after finishing every short film is submit it to Sundance. It has almost become a ritual, and you can probably imagine how many rejections I’ve already collected. I love how Sundance always cherishes the spirit of independent filmmaking and how it’s always a filmmaker-first festival.
J. Lin: I was there in 2024 for the first time with my feature film Brief History of a Family. It was a beautiful start of a very long and fruitful journey for the film.
Kaino: Working with Sundance Institute has been a career goal for most of my life. I first engaged with the organization when I participated in the Sundance Institute Screenwriters Intensive in 2022, and then I participated in the Producers Summit in 2023 as a guest speaker. We wanted to premiere the film at Sundance because the community has embraced the vision of our team for many years and especially to honor our producer Michael’s long-standing relationship with the Sundance family.
C. Lin: The first time I engaged with Sundance was at 2024 Sundance Film Festival: Asia. I had such a good time there, and I really [wished] I could be part of the official Sundance Film Festival. So I’m super grateful to be invited and can’t wait to participate in the Festival!
Eblahan: We first blindly submitted our film The Headhunter’s Daughter in 2022, and won the Short Film Grand Jury Prize. Since it was [online due to] COVID-19, we weren’t able to come ourselves, but this year we are excited to finally return to the Festival, and this time in person! We believe the mountain vibes, Native perspective, and art house sci-fi-western moments we have in our film will really resonate with the audience in Sundance 🙂
What’s your favorite film that has come from the Sundance Institute or Festival?
Maheshwari: Bug Diner by Phoebe Jane Hart (2023 Sundance Film Festival)
Wu: There’s a short film titled And So We Put Goldfish in the Pool. that won the Short Film Grand Jury Prize [at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival] and remains one of the most innovative short films I’ve seen.
Chheangkea: Boyhood
J. Lin: A Ghost Story, Kajillionaire, Get Out
Kaino: That’s an impossible question, but for this moment, for this film, it has to be Hoop Dreams. Steve James’ incredible work inspired me as a young art student all the way to this project and paved the way for a generation of filmmakers.
Moynihan: I’d like to shout out Dash Shaw and his film Cryptozoo. Dash is an old friend, and he convinced me to try to move into making animation independently. As I spent years chasing development deals at networks, Dash was making animated features on shoestring budgets. It took me a long time to realize that his way was better. Both of his features are beautiful and strange.
Hickey: Hard to say, but I loved Thirteen, Amreeka, and The Cove, to name a few.
C. Lin: Whiplash
