An NYU Advanced Thesis film about our parents, love, and growing up.

A half live action, half animated project discovering childhood wonder and imaginary worlds.

An Asian-American father-daughter story looking in on the nurture and acknowledgement we can cultivate towards our parents amidst adversity.

Emily Zhang is a Chinese-American filmmaker raised in St. Louis, Missouri. A senior at New York University, she is currently NYC-based and has worked extensively on a variety of film sets as well as interned for Baboon Animation in Brooklyn. Her education is supplemented by her studies at Waseda University in Tokyo. She is dedicated to telling empathetic stories and interested in exploring the intricacies of human relationships, and is excited to bring her Thesis film to life!

When do we grow up? How do we accept the world when our parents' protection is dismantled by the truth?

The film argues the first step is seeing our parents with great empathy. We’re interested in the hard conversations, how love and hard truths can co-exist in our relationships with our parents.

A young Chinese girl, April’s birthday is coming up. Her friends nag her about what she wants to do for her birthday. 

April asks Ming, her father, to get into contact with her estranged Mother. Ming rejects her idea and decides to buy her shoes instead. 

Unsatisfied, April continues to bask in her mother’s absence.

On the morning of April’s birthday, she receives a letter addressed from MAMALAND--from her estranged mother. 

April gets the letter back, and full of vitality, confronts her dad with the letter.

At April’s birthday party with all her friends she notices that the letter is written in her father’s handwriting.

As a result, a confrontation between April and her father, Ming, that forever changes April's life.  

A love letter to my parents. To finally see your dad and your mom, their sacrifice, and how they are not disparate from ourselves. How there’s so much we don’t understand as children.

A pure search for love and acceptance within your home.

A nurturing of the relationship you have with your parents.

Utilizing a mix between live-action and animation to tell April's story is incredibly important to this film. Stylistically, we are interested in multimedia filmmaking, mixing 2D practical animation to challenge the form of film to see what it can become, pushing boundaries utilizing the imaginative spirit of childhood.

We are fundraising $5,000 in our crowdfunding campaign. This will guarantee that our film will be GREENLIT and able to go into production! We are also funding for our reach goal of $10,000. This will ensure the desired quality of our film and make sure that all of our expenses are covered at each corner of the film's production.

We are dedicated to following the rules and regulations for an environmental friendly film set!