DIRECTORS STATEMENT

What does it take to end a cycle of intergenerational trauma so that the next generation can be free? How do we confront familial trauma with humility, understanding, and love, and transform ourselves in the process?

LITTLE SKY is a non-linear short that explores these questions. As a survivor of domestic violence, and a non-binary child of first generation immigrants, LITTLE SKY is inspired by personal experience, as well as the shared experiences of my queer Asian community. This community helped me find the courage to confront my family’s intergenerational trauma and discover a deep compassion for both my immigrant parents and all that I’ve come from.

I wanted to make a film for the community that gave me the courage to do things I never would have been able to alone. LITTLE SKY is a musical drama starring an ensemble of Asian American characters, both elder and young, speaking Mandarin, Cantonese and English, made by hand by a team of passionate LGBTQ+ people and people of color and diverse students at the NYU Graduate Film Program. It is a film about the healing power of art. In my life, I’ve learned that we can never change what happened to us, or where we come from, but we can choose to build family wherever we stand. In LITTLE SKY, we witness the moment where SKY, a non-binary Chinese-American drag performer, unexpectedly discovers that same truth and it changes the course of their life.

LITTLE SKY is a collaboratively-made musical drama that combines powerful non-binary characters, visually striking costume and production design, and emotionally-driven acting to create something new that Asian American cinema has never seen before. By merging the nostalgia of 16mm film with digital video, traversing between the past and present; we hope to open a window into Sky’s subjective experience of healing from PTSD. LITTLE SKY is a nuanced portrayal of the courage it takes to end a cycle of family violence, and not only accept our wounds, but transcend them and welcome in a future where we can be free.

LITTLE SKY is a film for anyone who has ever felt like an outsider to this world, and yearned for connection. LITTLE SKY is a film for Asians and Asian-Americans, to help the world empathize with our nuanced and beautiful histories at a time of sky-rocketing sino-phobia. It is a film for queers, and anyone who has ever questioned their gender identity. It is a film for anyone who has ever struggled to connect to their family, or grew up without a parent. It is a film for the many immigrants who long for their homelands across deserts and oceans in a country that tells them that they do not belong. It is a film for anyone who has ever ached to be loved, only to discover an expansive well of love inside of themselves. I hope it can be a film for you.

— Jess X. Snow, Writer/Director

Kyoko Takenaka (Miyo) and Wo Chan (Sky) on set with Sam Motamedi (Gaffer) and Zamarin Wahdat (Director of Photography)