Introducing Mimi
Cambridge, Massachusetts | Film Short
Comedy, Drama
Introducing Mimi is a short film about a young woman who finds her voice in a language she’s forgotten how to speak. It’s about expressing who you are and being at a loss for words. We tell this story for anyone who’s ever felt like they lost touch with a language or an identity.
Introducing Mimi
Cambridge, Massachusetts | Film Short
Comedy, Drama
Green Light
This campaign raised $6,020 for production. Follow the filmmaker to receive future updates on this project.
58 supporters | followers
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Introducing Mimi is a short film about a young woman who finds her voice in a language she’s forgotten how to speak. It’s about expressing who you are and being at a loss for words. We tell this story for anyone who’s ever felt like they lost touch with a language or an identity.
About The Project
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
How does it feel to lose your voice and to find it again?
A young woman, Mimi, and her Mandarin tutor, Hudson, meet in the children’s section of the library for their first tutoring lesson. Neither is who the other is expecting.
Mimi explains that she’s not learning Mandarin for the first time, she’s relearning a language that she once knew in her childhood. To Mimi’s frustration, Hudson is a friendly but firm teacher who instates a “Mandarin Only” rule for the rest of his… interesting lesson plan.
At first, Mimi can barely get through introductions. Hudson uses the library and its fun environment and resources to draw Mimi out of her shell. They translate book titles and invent stories about other library patrons. Mimi gains confidence but it’s not enough. She feels that she’ll never truly regain the language and the identity that she’s lost.
At the end of the lesson, Hudson prompts Mimi to reintroduce herself. Despite her limited vocabulary, and with the help of Hudson, Mimi finds the difficult words to describe herself and who she wants to be.
HELLO, MY NAME IS…
Self-expression is difficult. As young twenty-something-year-olds chasing our creative dreams, we know the struggle. In this film, we want to capture both the frustration and the funny moments of figuring out who you are. Mimi’s story about language is specific to the diaspora, but anyone who’s ever felt any angst about growing up and changing can certainly relate.
SHARED EXPERIENCE
We believe collaboration is key to representation. Many people in our cast and crew understand how it feels to have a fluctuating relationship with our primary or secondary languages and we will co-create the story with these experiences.
For Mimi’s role, it was imperative to cast someone who was not completely fluent in Mandarin, someone who would add their own nuances and quirks to how Mimi recalls words and terms.
LOCAL COMMUNITIES
Our team is mostly made up of young women and Asian American filmmakers from the Boston area. We want to spotlight our city and our creative community!
We also conceptualized and wrote this film at our local library, and Mimi’s Mandarin lesson is just one of the many stories that pass through this community space. We plan to film at a local library in the Greater Boston area. Maybe you’ll recognize some of the bookshelves!
STYLE, TONE, & INSPIRATION
Introducing Mimi is fast-paced, funny, emotionally honest, and talky. This is a film about language, so there will be lots of comedic dialogue and conversation (in Mandarin and English) between our bold characters, Mimi and Hudson.
In previous projects, Emai and Amy have drawn inspiration from coming-of-age movies written and directed by women, such as Edge of Seventeen, Lady Bird, Rye Lane, and Egghead & Twinkie, featuring spunky protagonists who are flawed, expressive, and trying to be true to themselves.
Visually, we will lean into bright colors and warm lighting inspired by the children’s section. The setting and the colors reflect Mimi's youthful personality and a past version of herself that she’s trying to reconnect with.
CHARACTERS
Mimi, the Lost Student, is a spunky, confident, and spikey character. We want her personality to jump out of the page and screen. Whether it’s making bold fashion choices, creating collages from old magazines, or giving honest real-time feedback, Mimi is a character who just wants to express herself.
Hudson, the Mandarin Tutor, has a smile for every situation and always shows up to the function a bit over-dressed. He’s great with kids but young adults are a mystery to him. Winning people over has always come easily to Hudson, but has he finally met his match in Mimi?
So far we’ve cast our two leads, assembled our crew, and completed location scouting. Our cast and crew are gearing up for production in early July. Your support will go towards cast and crew pay, film equipment, production design (costume, props, set), transportation, meals, and more.
We understand that telling a story requires a great team first and foremost, which is why half of our budget is allocated to cast and crew. If we meet our stretch goal, we will hire a colorist, sound mixer, and editor for post-production, who will help us complete the project before we send it off. Of course, we will prioritize working with young, local BIPOC, women filmmakers.
After filming, we plan to spend a few months in post-production, and then submit to festivals in Boston and around the United States starting Fall 2024. Once the festival run is complete, we will make Introducing Mimi available to the public for free! If you’re excited to see the film before it goes to festivals, you can pledge $50 for an early screening link that you’ll receive in October 2024.
SUPPORT THIS PROJECT by PLEDGING here on this campaign page and SHARING our Instagram @introducing_mimi. We’ll post fun updates, including our cast and crew profiles, location scouting, costume designing, bilingual rehearsal process, language stories from the community, and more! DM us if you’re interested in sharing your story and being featured on our Instagram! We would love to spotlight other young AAPI filmmakers and artists.
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Production Design
Costs $300
For the cast in the hat, other costume items to complete Mimi and Hudson's distinctive styles, props, and set details!
Transportation
Costs $500
Oh, the places we'll go... require Uber fees and gas!
Meals for Cast and Crew
Costs $750
If you give the cast and crew a cookie… and lunch.
Cast and Crew
Costs $2,500
Nothing would be possible without the cast and crew!
Equipment Rental
Costs $750
Green eggs? No, thank you. Camera, sound, and lighting equipment? YES, PLEASE.
Film Festival Fees
Costs $200
Help us say good job to our team by submitting our hard work to local and national film festivals.
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
Emai Lai, Director & Producer
Emai Lai is a filmmaker who has created sketch comedy videos and narrative short films. As a college student in 2021, Emai directed the short film Key Change, which was featured in the Mystic Film Festival and was a semi-finalist for the Student Los Angeles Film Awards. Since then, she has helped produce Yumeji House Pictures’ Mandarins and the upcoming Cherry-Colored Funk — both films about Asian American and immigrant experiences. As the daughter of Taiwanese and Cambodian parents, she hopes to honor the perspectives of different generations of Asian Americans and explore the unique and universal ways they navigate the discomfort, frustration, and humor of entering adulthood.
After rage-quitting Chinese school in her childhood, Emai is now attempting to repair her relationship with learning new languages and currently holds a 286-day streak on Duolingo.
Amy Chu, Writer, Producer, & Production Designer
Amy Chu has written scripts, personal essays, and comics. Her comics and illustrations have been published in magazines, such as The Commuter and Slant’d. She is a regular contributor to the cooperatively owned newsletter, Flaming Hydra.
Amy thinks a lot about how our identity shapes our relationships in life and love. The script for Introducing Mimi was inspired by Amy’s experiences taking Mandarin classes and reconnecting with her family’s Wuhan dialect.
How she’d rate her fluency in Mandarin: “Squiggly. Or like MadLibs but none of the blanks are filled in.”
Matthew Jiang, Director of Photography
Matthew was born and raised in the Bay Area, CA to Chinese immigrant parents. He’s a recent graduate of Emerson College and has worked on numerous projects, mainly short films and music videos, as a cinematographer. In his free time, Matthew is a Roman and WW2 history enthusiast as well as a sneakerhead. You can follow him on Instagram @_matthewjiang_ and @kicksbymatthew.
Matthew loves languages! He speaks English natively as well as French, Spanish, and Mandarin with varying fluency levels.
Ana Curi, Assistant Director
Ana Curi is from Mexico City but grew up in Miami. She’s primarily an editor but can’t seem to let go of her love for being on set. She enjoys directing music videos, short films, and commercials, as well as working as a 1st AD and Scripty. Ana has also been on international sets, like in Mexico City and Bari, Italy.
Ana speaks Spanglish (mix of English and Spanish) with her family and friends, and she finds fascinating that other people also do that with their own language (like Chinglish).
Cindy (Xinyi) He, Social Media and Communications Assistant
Cindy was born in Singapore but grew up in Pennsylvania with Chinese immigrant parents. She has a stubborn love for art, film, music, and anything creative, and her past endeavors include managing social media accounts for the Georgetown Gracenotes as well as for her own music.
Though Cindy often can't find the right words when speaking Mandarin, she has discovered that dim sum menus and karaoke nights in Chinatown are great ways to refresh her memory (although her vocabulary mainly consists of food and sad love lyrics as a result – but who's complaining?)
Current Team
Incentives
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
How does it feel to lose your voice and to find it again?
A young woman, Mimi, and her Mandarin tutor, Hudson, meet in the children’s section of the library for their first tutoring lesson. Neither is who the other is expecting.
Mimi explains that she’s not learning Mandarin for the first time, she’s relearning a language that she once knew in her childhood. To Mimi’s frustration, Hudson is a friendly but firm teacher who instates a “Mandarin Only” rule for the rest of his… interesting lesson plan.
At first, Mimi can barely get through introductions. Hudson uses the library and its fun environment and resources to draw Mimi out of her shell. They translate book titles and invent stories about other library patrons. Mimi gains confidence but it’s not enough. She feels that she’ll never truly regain the language and the identity that she’s lost.
At the end of the lesson, Hudson prompts Mimi to reintroduce herself. Despite her limited vocabulary, and with the help of Hudson, Mimi finds the difficult words to describe herself and who she wants to be.
HELLO, MY NAME IS…
Self-expression is difficult. As young twenty-something-year-olds chasing our creative dreams, we know the struggle. In this film, we want to capture both the frustration and the funny moments of figuring out who you are. Mimi’s story about language is specific to the diaspora, but anyone who’s ever felt any angst about growing up and changing can certainly relate.
SHARED EXPERIENCE
We believe collaboration is key to representation. Many people in our cast and crew understand how it feels to have a fluctuating relationship with our primary or secondary languages and we will co-create the story with these experiences.
For Mimi’s role, it was imperative to cast someone who was not completely fluent in Mandarin, someone who would add their own nuances and quirks to how Mimi recalls words and terms.
LOCAL COMMUNITIES
Our team is mostly made up of young women and Asian American filmmakers from the Boston area. We want to spotlight our city and our creative community!
We also conceptualized and wrote this film at our local library, and Mimi’s Mandarin lesson is just one of the many stories that pass through this community space. We plan to film at a local library in the Greater Boston area. Maybe you’ll recognize some of the bookshelves!
STYLE, TONE, & INSPIRATION
Introducing Mimi is fast-paced, funny, emotionally honest, and talky. This is a film about language, so there will be lots of comedic dialogue and conversation (in Mandarin and English) between our bold characters, Mimi and Hudson.
In previous projects, Emai and Amy have drawn inspiration from coming-of-age movies written and directed by women, such as Edge of Seventeen, Lady Bird, Rye Lane, and Egghead & Twinkie, featuring spunky protagonists who are flawed, expressive, and trying to be true to themselves.
Visually, we will lean into bright colors and warm lighting inspired by the children’s section. The setting and the colors reflect Mimi's youthful personality and a past version of herself that she’s trying to reconnect with.
CHARACTERS
Mimi, the Lost Student, is a spunky, confident, and spikey character. We want her personality to jump out of the page and screen. Whether it’s making bold fashion choices, creating collages from old magazines, or giving honest real-time feedback, Mimi is a character who just wants to express herself.
Hudson, the Mandarin Tutor, has a smile for every situation and always shows up to the function a bit over-dressed. He’s great with kids but young adults are a mystery to him. Winning people over has always come easily to Hudson, but has he finally met his match in Mimi?
So far we’ve cast our two leads, assembled our crew, and completed location scouting. Our cast and crew are gearing up for production in early July. Your support will go towards cast and crew pay, film equipment, production design (costume, props, set), transportation, meals, and more.
We understand that telling a story requires a great team first and foremost, which is why half of our budget is allocated to cast and crew. If we meet our stretch goal, we will hire a colorist, sound mixer, and editor for post-production, who will help us complete the project before we send it off. Of course, we will prioritize working with young, local BIPOC, women filmmakers.
After filming, we plan to spend a few months in post-production, and then submit to festivals in Boston and around the United States starting Fall 2024. Once the festival run is complete, we will make Introducing Mimi available to the public for free! If you’re excited to see the film before it goes to festivals, you can pledge $50 for an early screening link that you’ll receive in October 2024.
SUPPORT THIS PROJECT by PLEDGING here on this campaign page and SHARING our Instagram @introducing_mimi. We’ll post fun updates, including our cast and crew profiles, location scouting, costume designing, bilingual rehearsal process, language stories from the community, and more! DM us if you’re interested in sharing your story and being featured on our Instagram! We would love to spotlight other young AAPI filmmakers and artists.
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Production Design
Costs $300
For the cast in the hat, other costume items to complete Mimi and Hudson's distinctive styles, props, and set details!
Transportation
Costs $500
Oh, the places we'll go... require Uber fees and gas!
Meals for Cast and Crew
Costs $750
If you give the cast and crew a cookie… and lunch.
Cast and Crew
Costs $2,500
Nothing would be possible without the cast and crew!
Equipment Rental
Costs $750
Green eggs? No, thank you. Camera, sound, and lighting equipment? YES, PLEASE.
Film Festival Fees
Costs $200
Help us say good job to our team by submitting our hard work to local and national film festivals.
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
Emai Lai, Director & Producer
Emai Lai is a filmmaker who has created sketch comedy videos and narrative short films. As a college student in 2021, Emai directed the short film Key Change, which was featured in the Mystic Film Festival and was a semi-finalist for the Student Los Angeles Film Awards. Since then, she has helped produce Yumeji House Pictures’ Mandarins and the upcoming Cherry-Colored Funk — both films about Asian American and immigrant experiences. As the daughter of Taiwanese and Cambodian parents, she hopes to honor the perspectives of different generations of Asian Americans and explore the unique and universal ways they navigate the discomfort, frustration, and humor of entering adulthood.
After rage-quitting Chinese school in her childhood, Emai is now attempting to repair her relationship with learning new languages and currently holds a 286-day streak on Duolingo.
Amy Chu, Writer, Producer, & Production Designer
Amy Chu has written scripts, personal essays, and comics. Her comics and illustrations have been published in magazines, such as The Commuter and Slant’d. She is a regular contributor to the cooperatively owned newsletter, Flaming Hydra.
Amy thinks a lot about how our identity shapes our relationships in life and love. The script for Introducing Mimi was inspired by Amy’s experiences taking Mandarin classes and reconnecting with her family’s Wuhan dialect.
How she’d rate her fluency in Mandarin: “Squiggly. Or like MadLibs but none of the blanks are filled in.”
Matthew Jiang, Director of Photography
Matthew was born and raised in the Bay Area, CA to Chinese immigrant parents. He’s a recent graduate of Emerson College and has worked on numerous projects, mainly short films and music videos, as a cinematographer. In his free time, Matthew is a Roman and WW2 history enthusiast as well as a sneakerhead. You can follow him on Instagram @_matthewjiang_ and @kicksbymatthew.
Matthew loves languages! He speaks English natively as well as French, Spanish, and Mandarin with varying fluency levels.
Ana Curi, Assistant Director
Ana Curi is from Mexico City but grew up in Miami. She’s primarily an editor but can’t seem to let go of her love for being on set. She enjoys directing music videos, short films, and commercials, as well as working as a 1st AD and Scripty. Ana has also been on international sets, like in Mexico City and Bari, Italy.
Ana speaks Spanglish (mix of English and Spanish) with her family and friends, and she finds fascinating that other people also do that with their own language (like Chinglish).
Cindy (Xinyi) He, Social Media and Communications Assistant
Cindy was born in Singapore but grew up in Pennsylvania with Chinese immigrant parents. She has a stubborn love for art, film, music, and anything creative, and her past endeavors include managing social media accounts for the Georgetown Gracenotes as well as for her own music.
Though Cindy often can't find the right words when speaking Mandarin, she has discovered that dim sum menus and karaoke nights in Chinatown are great ways to refresh her memory (although her vocabulary mainly consists of food and sad love lyrics as a result – but who's complaining?)