Muchun Zhang is a Chinese American virgin in her late 20s. While shopping for sex toys with her best friend, she runs into a former high school classmate, Josh Pinto. Muchun decides to go on a date with Josh in the hopes of losing her virginity, only to learn that he is an Asian fetishist.
Muchun Zhang is a Chinese American virgin in her late 20s. While shopping for sex toys with her best friend, she runs into a former high school classmate, Josh Pinto. Muchun decides to go on a date with Josh in the hopes of losing her virginity, only to learn that he is an Asian fetishist.
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Story
About The Project
I have always known that I wanted to make films that predominantly feature people of color - as a woman of color, I’m the protagonist of my own story, and I know that my friends are hungry to see themselves reflected on the screen. "M. Virgin" began as a nascent idea three years ago. Part of the inspiration came from Jessica Hagedorn’s essay “No Joy, No Luck”; she recounts that during a viewing of the Joy Luck Club, a Chinese Filipino writer asked, “Must ethnicity only be equated with suffering?”
I decided that I wanted to write a comedy. Asian Americans are frequently invisible in popular culture (Fresh Off the Boat is a start), and part of shattering that invisibility necessitates making a film that revolves around an Asian American cast. I wanted the world I created to resemble the one I knew: several complex characters of color, all three-dimensional, all with their individual quirks. Comedy, I thought, could also be instructional; the best kind of comedy is subversive, and I believed that seeing women of color who could also be driving forces in pop culture was one of the most subversive works of art I could ever create.
One year ago, I went to the Sundance Screenwriters Intensive to workshop the feature script of "M. Virgin." For the short film, I am adapting three scenes from the feature draft, all of which deal with the intersection of protagonist Muchun Zhang’s race, gender, and sexuality (themes heavily explored throughout the feature). I hope this film inspires people to see the Asian American community similarly to the way I do: not as a monolithic community, but rather one that allows for the full depth and breadth of the human experience, and one that deserves a plethora of filmmakers who can translate the diversity of those experiences to the big screen.
Incentives
$5
Thank you credit in the film$15
Race, gender, and sexuality reading list compiled by writer/director and producer
$25
Personalized film still photography thank you postcard
$35
An e-mail link to the finished film
$50
Personalized M. Virgin poster
Claimed: 0 of 200
$100
Digital download of original M. Virgin score
$250
Your picture used as Muchun and Josh's family and friends' pictures
$500
Extra in "adult" store scene (must be in NYC or able to get there on your own)
Claimed: 0 of 6
$1,000
Associate Producer credit
Claimed: 0 of 6
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Wishlist
Use the WishList to pledge cash and loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an incentive directly.
$5
Thank you credit in the film$15
Race, gender, and sexuality reading list compiled by writer/director and producer
$25
Personalized film still photography thank you postcard
$35
An e-mail link to the finished film
$50
Personalized M. Virgin poster
Claimed: 0 of 200
$100
Digital download of original M. Virgin score
$250
Your picture used as Muchun and Josh's family and friends' pictures
$500
Extra in "adult" store scene (must be in NYC or able to get there on your own)
Claimed: 0 of 6
$1,000
Associate Producer credit
Claimed: 0 of 6
- Updates
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Current Team
About This Team
Zhuojie Chen (Writer, Director, Producer) is a filmmaker from Charlotte, North Carolina. She has worked for the Food Network’s Sweet Genius and Rachael vs. Guy: Celebrity Cook-Off, the inaugural Frieze New York Art Fair, and Funny or Die’s Billy on the Street. She received her bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and her master’s degree from New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study. In 2014, she was a Fellow at the Sundance Screenwriters Intensive. Once upon a time, she went by Suzy; then she decided she liked her given name more.
Jheanelle Brown (Producer) is a current graduate student in Critical Studies at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, where she has produced various films. She received her bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and worked in public service for four interesting years. Before Los Angeles, she called Washington, DC and Lithonia, Georgia home (and thinks of Jamaica as home in a motherland sense).
Jacqui Brown (Associate Producer) has political inclinations and her love of storytelling revolves around the personal as political. She has worked in law enforcement and management consulting, and looks forward to developing her own scripts and films. She has a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Columbia University and has just received a Fulbright grant to study corruption in Jamaica in 2015-2016.
Sheldon Chau (Director of Photography) Born and raised in Los Angeles and of Cantonese descent, Sheldon first discovered his greater passion for films in his mid-teens when he was introduced to the Criterion Collection DVDs by both his artist uncle and high school drama teacher. From there, Sheldon further realized the power of storytelling when he learned of his parents’ tale of survival during the Fall of Saigon in which they fled the country and ended up in the U.S. after an arduous journey. After earning a bachelor’s degree in Film & Media Studies at the University of California, Irvine, and finding a natural enthusiasm for visuals and camerawork, Sheldon decided to fully pursue cinematography as an MFA student at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, where he was the winner of the prestigious 2015 ARRI Volker Bahnemann Award for Cinematography and a 2013 Kodak Cinematography Scholarship nominee. He is also an avid lover of pugs and pineapple buns.
Catherine Regio (Consulting Producer) has many of years of experience in the film world, starting out her career at CAA in the independent film finance and sales department. She then moved on to work at Warner Bros in Creative Development before landing at new indie distribution outfit Alchemy, focusing on digital distribution. As a native New Yorker living in LA, she misses the seasons and public transportation.
Yusuf Siddiquee (Composer) is a musician and music producer living in Brooklyn, NY. He has worked on an original score for the indie short film Sea of Fog (in production) and as audio engineer (live and post production) for two independent web series under the “MIPSTERZ” moniker, including the upcoming concert series SUNDAYS/cool. Yusuf has been writing music ever since he stole his brother’s guitar in middle school, and is currently recording and producing an EP with his band atlantic / pacific.
Christina Ventura (Graphic Designer, Photographer) is a community manager and sometimes photo taker living and working in NYC.
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