In early 2021, as COVID-19 cases surged, filmmaker Sean Wang moved back to his childhood home in Fremont to live with his parents and his maternal and paternal grandmothers.
What was supposed to be a pitstop between New York to L.A. stretched to a nearly year-long stay during which Wang fell into a charmed daily existence with his doting grandmothers, who'd dance and joke with him and "we'd all kind of light up with a smile."
Outside, the world was in upheaval. Hospitalizations were soaring, and his grandmothers stayed home, not only to steer clear of the virus but a parallel rise in anti-Asian violence that was raining down on the most vulnerable.
"I was reading in the headlines about people like them being attacked," Wang, 29, said. "That was kind of the catalyst for 'Let's make something that can be an antidote to all of the anger that I'm seeing and feeling and really capture what I see in my grandmothers who are so full of life and humanity, and compassion.'"
With a rented camera and a small crew of friends, Wang made a short film with a "home video ethos" about his grandmothers that chronicled their decades-long friendship, their similar paths from hardscrabble childhoods in Taiwan to happier lives in the U.S. surrounded by family.
It became "Nai Nai & Wài Pó" and three years later, the film is up for a Best Documentary Short trophy.
On Sunday, his 86-year-old maternal grandmother Chang Li Hua — wài pó, in Mandarin — and 96-year-old paternal grandmother Yi Yan Fuei — his nǎi nai — will accompany him to the Oscars ceremony at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood.
"If none of this happened, it would be OK," said Wang, a USC film school graduate now living in Silver Lake. "We had this film for me and my family. And so to be nominated for an Oscar it still doesn't really feel quite real."
Nai Nai & Wài Pó helped break a new Oscar record. Three out of the five nominees for Best Documentary Short this year were directed by Asian Americans: Aside from Wang, S. Leo Chiang helmed Island in Between while Christine Turner co-directed The Barber of Little Rock.
In the Best Documentary Feature category, Canadian director Nisha Pahuja was nominated for To Kill A Tiger.
The preponderance of Asian documentary makers nominated for Oscars this year doesn't come as a surprise to Brian Hu, the artistic director of the San Diego Asian Film Festival and a film professor at San Diego State University.
Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó, Sean Wang, Sam Davis
The ABCs of Book Banning Sheila Nevins, Trish Adlesic
Island in Between S. Leo Chiang, Jean Tsien
The Barber of Little Rock Christine Turner, John Hoffman
The Last Repair Shop Kris Bowers, Ben Proudfoot
Hu said Asian American talent has been steadily fostered and promoted since the 1980s, after public broadcasting officials acknowledged the lack of multicultural stories being told by filmmakers of color. A network of media groups were formed including what is known today as the Center for Asian American Media, which finances and showcases Asian American-led projects.
Hu, who co-hosts a podcast about Asian American cinema called Saturday School, said more diversity in documentaries is still needed. But the intentional development of Asian American filmmakers could partly explain why they're better represented in non-fiction than in narrative features made by Hollywood studios.
"A lot of people who are working in the documentary worlds are invested in issues of social justice and what it means to be American whereas perhaps in the more entertainment-like realm of fiction filmmaking, that's less on their minds."
1955: James Wong Howe becomes the first Asian American cinematographer to win an Oscar, picking up his first of two trophies for The Rose Tattoo.
1957: When she took home Best Supporting Actress, Miyoshi Umeki became the first Asian actor to win an acting Oscar.
1977: Film editor Richard Chew becomes the first Asian American to win Best Film Editing.
1985: Haing Ngor becomes first actor of Asian descent to win Best Supporting Actor for The Killing Fields.
2005: Ang Lee becomes first Asian director to win for his work in Brokeback Mountain. Goes on to win for Life Of Pi in 2012.
2021: Chloe Zhao becomes first Asian woman to win Best Director for Nomadland
2023: A record number of artists of Asian descent win major categories for their work in Everything Everywhere All At Once, including co-director Daniel Kwan, Best Actress winner Michelle Yeoh and Best Supporting Actor winner Ke Huy Quan.
Every so often, an Asian-helmed and -starring narrative feature like Everything Everywhere All At Once and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon do make a big splash and sweep major categories at awards ceremonies. Hu said "you get a feeling like, 'Oh, we've arrived.'"
"But really what happened is one film arrived," Hu said.
This year, happily for fans of Past Lives, the film about a bittersweet reunion between two childhood friends from Korea received a Best Picture nomination while director-screenwriter Celine Song was nominated for Best Original Screenplay. Greta Lee's acclaimed lead performance and Song's debut as a film director, however, were passed over by Academy members.
Wang is the rare director who straddles both the fiction and non-fiction worlds. While he's been promoting Nai Nai & Wài Pó, he's also been getting ready for the summer theatrical release of his debut feature film Didi . Another deeply personal tale, this one about a Taiwanese American boy entering his teen years, Didi was honored at this year's Sundance Film Festival
"You only make the thing that you make, and you put your best foot forward and kind of see where it lives in the world," Wang said.
His grandmothers have long supported his film endeavors, gamely making a video Christmas card five years ago that featured scenes of them playing dress-up and swigging hard liquor that Wang replicated for Nai Nai & Wài Pó.
"It's a side of themselves that I think nobody has really allowed them to show in a very sort of creative way," Wang said.
In Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó , the silliness was juxtaposed against the pain and sadness both grandmothers carried, starting from their childhood, when they fled war-torn China for Taiwan. In the film, Nai Nai recalls the loss of her mom at 10, and her father at 12.
The film also obliquely addresses their pandemic-era anxiety created by the rise in anti-Asian violence, with a scene of the grandmothers reading a Chinese-language newspaper.
But most of the film focuses on the quiet pleasures of daily lives spent together exercising, singing and tucking into the same bed at night where Chang interrogates Yi about farting under the covers.
By the end of the film, the message of the grandmothers is clear even as they describe death drawing nearer: Choose joy, to paraphrase Yi.
For their red carpet debut, the two will wear custom Rodarte and be styled by an Oscar-nominated costume designer.
"They're really having like the best time of their lives," Wang said. "It feels really special to kind of be able to give them this core memory at 96 and 86 years old."
The flirtation with Hollywood isn't over for his wài pó, Chang Li Hua. She stars in his new film Didi — as the grandmother.
