For writer and director Quentin Lee, the reason for screening
his film’s world premiere at AFI FEST was simple.
“Once you launch a film in Los Angeles, that’s
it,” said Lee. “If you picked the wrong place for it,
your movie is pretty much dead.”
And dead is anywhere but where Lee wants his film to be. With
“Ethan Mao,” the story of an Asian American teenage boy
and his struggles with his family over being gay, Lee is facing a
struggle many beginning filmmakers have gone through time and time
again: finding an audience. This is especially the case with
“Ethan Mao,” as it has yet to find a distributor and
lacks the budget to buy its place into national release.
“For a regular independent film, the budget is anywhere
between $1 million to $10 million. We are considered really low
budget ““ way under $1 million,” said Lee. “We
have very little money for promotion and so this film festival is
basically our big shot.
“Our strategy is to appeal to the niches ““ obviously
the gay and Asian American audiences, but also people who are
interested in cool, indie movies. Ideally, through word of mouth,
it will attract a crossover audience,” Lee said.
Although the film is seemingly attractive to a very specific
audience, Lee believes its out-of-the-ordinary character adds to
the appeal “Ethan Mao” offers. Lee incorporates a
variety of different genres into his film, calling it part family
drama, part hostage thriller and part coming-of-age story.
“The fact that the main character is gay and Asian
American adds dimension and makes it even more interesting. Movies
are a place where we can safely explore different desires and
experiences that most of us wouldn’t otherwise be able to
have,” said Lee. “Movies are not meant to be safe. They
are meant to be stimulating and create radical experiences for the
audience.”
Still, Lee hopes that AFI FEST will serve as a launching pad.
Coming to the 11-day-long festival as an independent filmmaker, Lee
knew he would be facing a much different struggle than that of the
big-name Hollywood director.
“Basically, all the festivals require the screening of
your film to be a world premiere, so you want to expose your film
at the biggest festival possible,” Lee said.
And for many young filmmakers like Lee, the process of finding
the right festival is a trying one and can result in long periods
of wait time.
“The movie was done at the beginning of the year and since
then we’ve been biding our time, waiting to showcase our
movie,” said Lee. “It got to be pretty difficult around
June because we weren’t having a lot of luck with the bigger
festivals and here I was with all these loans and maxed-out credit
cards.”
Lee attributes the ability to work with a very small budget to
his days at UCLA, which is where he met Stanley Yung, the producer
of “Ethan Mao.”
“Coming from UCLA, we all have this innate understanding
about making a film on a low budget,” said Lee. “I felt
much more comfortable working with fellow UCLA students because I
knew that we would be able to use very limited resources to create
a high quality film.”
In addition to his experience at UCLA, Lee was inspired by his
own family experiences, which factored into the main story line of
the film.
“At 19, my sister was kicked out of the house by my
stepmom over some small argument, and that affected me a lot
emotionally. Then I realized that lots of my friends were being
kicked out of their houses for being gay, and I wanted to build a
story around that dramatic experience,” Lee said.
Inspired by movies as “Rebel without a Cause,” Lee
focused on creating a teen rebel movie that features a gay teen
icon.
“Most of the gay teen films that have been made
aren’t too edgy,” Lee said. “I wanted to write a
story about this gay teen who is no longer a victim and goes back
and kicks ass.”