Following the funeral of their mother, two brothers reunite in a home they once lived in. As they share a meal, a seemingly quiet evening unfolds into years of unspoken resentment. Through grief, memory, and honesty, both brothers come to unearth the expectations placed upon them that shaped their lives in different ways. 

I grew up surrounded by a very particular definition of success.

Get into the right school. Find the right career. Earn enough money. Make your parents proud. Build a life that proves every sacrifice made for you was worth.

For many children of immigrants, these expectations come from a place of love. But somewhere along the way, gratitude became an obligation. And it can become difficult to distinguish between the life we actually want and the life we have been taught to want.

The Ideal comes from my desire to explore that tension.

That complexity is especially important to me when telling Asian American stories. I want to push beyond simply depicting the pressures of the "model minority" and instead examine what happens when those expectations become internalized, when we begin measuring ourselves and each other by the same standards that once constrained us. The Ideal asks what we lose when achievement becomes a proxy for worth, and whether we can imagine forms of success rooted in something other than prestige.

Films like The Farewell and A Real Pain serve as major inspirations for how The Ideal approaches family. Both films understand that families rarely confront their deepest wounds directly. Instead, enormous emotions emerge through small gestures, uncomfortable jokes, mundane conversations, and moments when someone chooses not to speak. The Ideal lives in that same space, allowing tension to accumulate naturally until what has remained unspoken can no longer stay buried.

The Ideal is my most ambitious project to date, and it is also my most personal.

With my previous films ANALOG and Stinky Lunch, I learned just how much can be accomplished when a community believes in a story and comes together to make it possible. The Ideal is the next step forward, one that is larger in scope, more demanding creatively, and built with the intention of creating a film that can reach audiences well beyond our own community.

We're raising $35,000 to make that possible.

So far, we've secured $5,000 from the team and early supporters, which means we're asking our community to help us raise the remaining $30,000 through this campaign.

The Ideal is currently supported by:

• Light Ridge High School Theater Department

That funding will allow us to make The Ideal the right way: fairly compensating our cast and crew, securing the locations and production resources the story requires, creating the film's carefully designed visual world, and giving our post-production team the time and resources necessary to finish the film at the level we envision.

Independent filmmaking has always been communal. Every person who contributes, shares this campaign, introduces us to a potential collaborator, offers a location, or simply tells someone about the film becomes part of the village bringing The Ideal to life.

Whether you contribute $10, $100, $1,000, share the campaign with someone who connects with this story, or find another way to support the production, you're helping us take The Ideal from a screenplay to the screen.

It takes a village to make a film. We're asking you to be part of ours.

Here is how you can help bring The Ideal to life:

1. Join our team by making a pledge on this page. You will receive some cool incentives and our utmost gratitude!

2. Follow us on Instagram @treeline.productions 

3. Follow/Subscribe to our campaign on Seed & Spark for updates on our project - more followers actually qualifies us for Seed & Spark support packages

4. Share our campaign via social media, email, word-of-mouth, or any way you can!!

A BIG THANK YOU to everyone for your support! We'd love to hear your thoughts or questions. Feel free to reach out to us on Instagram @treeline.productions or at [email protected].