Ugly Feelings
Cambridge, Massachusetts | Film Feature
Comedy, Teen
Ugly Feelings is a dark comedy coming‑of‑age story following Jenny, a biracial Chinese American girl navigating the angst and confusion of senior year in a small New England town. Bold and messy, Ugly Feelings explores the contradictory intricacies of multiracial identity.
Ugly Feelings
Cambridge, Massachusetts | Film Feature
Comedy, Teen
1 Campaigns | Massachusetts, United States
Green Light
This campaign raised $11,000 for development. Follow the filmmaker to receive future updates on this project.
77 supporters | followers
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Ugly Feelings is a dark comedy coming‑of‑age story following Jenny, a biracial Chinese American girl navigating the angst and confusion of senior year in a small New England town. Bold and messy, Ugly Feelings explores the contradictory intricacies of multiracial identity.
Participating In
About The Project
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
From the writer, Karina Cowperthwaite:
Ugly Feelings explores the questions of mixed-race Asian American identity that have followed me throughout my life. I've grappled with how my whiteness is in conversation with my Asianness. What does it mean to be simultaneously steeped in white privilege but to also be a person of color? How is multiracial identity informed by our families? Friendships? Romantic relationships? How do the media and the communities we interact with and belong to understand mixedness? How does their understanding inform how we see ourselves and the world? As strange hybrid creatures, the perfect examples of post-racial assimilation? Or a distinct and whole identity to celebrate, challenge, and be proud of.
Credit: Ugly Feelings Stage Production
The desire to belong haunts Jenny Mason, a 17-year-old Chinese American girl growing up in the mostly white town of Greenville, Maine. An unreliable narrator, Jenny guides us through her memories, dreams, and nightmares — her reality refracted through a warped and often fantastical lens — as she struggles to understand her biracial identity.
Her world revolves around a tight-knit group: a perfectly assimilated Chinese American mother, a well-meaning white father, her twin brother George, two Asian American best friends, and Alex — the Chinese American new kid from L.A. But when a racially charged mistake of Jenny’s own making fractures that orbit, it upends everything she thought she knew about her place in the world. Together, this group of teenagers figure out how close the chapter on childhood, and say goodbye to the town they've known their entire lives.
Credit: Zoe Thorogood
In “The Mixed Metaphor: Why Does the Half-White, Half-Asian Protagonist Make Us So Anxious?,” Andrea Long Chu writes that:
“If there is one conclusion to be reached from the mixed Asian experience, it is this: People want race. They want race to win them something, to tell them everything they were never told; they want friendship from it, or sex, or even love; and sometimes, they just want to be something or to have something to be…There is, after all, a reason that people sit together: They don’t want to be alone.”
Jenny wants race.
She wants it to win her something,
tell her everything she was never told,
give her friendship, sex, even love.
Above all, she wants race to give her something to be.
At the end of the day...she just doesn’t want to be alone.
Ugly Feelings was originally written as Karina’s senior thesis submitted to the Department of English at Harvard University. It was performed as a stage play in 2023 at the Loeb Drama Center and workshopped through The New Play Development Residency with Fresh Ink Theatre Company and CHUANG Stage in 2025. It was nominated for a Hoopes Prize in recognition of outstanding research and scholarly work.
As we adapt Ugly Feelings from stage to screen, we’re crafting a visual language that mirrors Jenny’s chaotic and unreliable inner world. The film blends surrealism and satire to reflect the intensity of her emotional experience. Tonally and visually, we shift between heightened stylization and grounded realism, capturing both the absurdity and sincerity of coming-of-age.
The project shares a tonal kinship with Fleabag (Jenny’s fourth-wall-breaking asides), Never Have I Ever (the complicated intimacy of high school friendships), Everything Everywhere All At Once (genre-defying surrealism and theatricality), The Worst Person in the World (formally marked coming-of-age chapters), and Slanted (candid exploration of internalized whiteness).
Ugly Feelings explores the emotional reality of racial ambiguity in mixed-race identities and cultural longing in a voice we rarely see onscreen. We believe there’s an urgency in creating space for flawed, stylized, emotionally volatile explorations of Asian identity – ones that feel riskier, messier, and more honest. This story doesn’t want to redeem its characters but rather give them the freedom to be angry, confused, performative, or even cruel...and asks the audience to sit with that discomfort.
We're aiming to raise a $10,000 development budget through Seed & Spark as part of the AAPI Renaissance Rally. During June - August 2025, we'll adapt the stage play, and begin assembling a passionate team of collaborators. We’re committed to preserving the play's complexity through every layer of adaptation—casting, performance, visual language—by assembling a creative crew that reflects the world we’re portraying.
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Script & Casting Development
Costs $2,500
Support workshops, readings, and outreach with AANHPI creatives and community partners.
Pitch Deck, Lookbook, & Visuals
Costs $1,200
Design our pitch deck and lookbook to showcase story, team, and vision.
Sizzle Reel
Costs $2,000
Film a sizzle reel to bring our story to life for partners and supporters.
Line Producer
Costs $2,500
Bring on a line producer to budget and schedule our AANHPI-driven feature adaptation.
Legal & Admin
Costs $800
Cover LLC setup and basic legal fees to launch our feature adaptation.
Social Media Content Creator
Costs $1,000
Bring on a creator with skill in graphic design and social media to help create social media content and expand our outreach on platforms.
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
Karina Cowperthwaite – Screenwriter
Karina Cowperthwaite is a writer and director based in Cambridge, MA. A recent graduate of Harvard College with a degree in English and Theater, Dance and Media. Karina is passionate about uplifting Asian American work and challenging her definition of what Asian American art can be. As Co-President of the Asian Student Arts Project, she directed a Pan-Asian adaptation of Legally Blonde, the first musical on Harvard's campus with an all Asian cast which was featured on NBC News as well as writing, directing and acting in an original play titled Ugly Feelings at the Loeb Drama Center which was nominated for a Hoopes Prize. For her work, Karina was awarded the Lee Patrick Award in Drama, The David McCord Prize and Harvard College Women's Center Transformational Leadership Award. Karina currently serves as the Artistic Coordinator and Special Assistant to Artistic Director Diane Paulus at the American Repertory Theater at Harvard University.
Grace Sun – Director
Grace Sun is a Chinese-Canadian filmmaker, and the Artist-in-Residence at the Harvard University Signet Society of Arts & Letters. She writes and directs coming-of-age stories, and romantic comedies & dramas. As a former Creative Director for the Film and Entertainment team at Instagram in New York, Grace spent a decade exploring film marketing through the lens of innovation, connection, and culture. She's passionate about amplifying the work of underrepresented artists and widening the spectrum of stories that get seen, told, and celebrated.
Cynthia Liu – Video Editor
Cynthia Liu is a photographer & documentary filmmaker based in NYC. Her work has been recognized by the Hearst Journalism Awards, the Asian American Journalists Association, and College Photographer of the Year. She was previously a video fellow at Business Insider, an English teacher in France, and a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Journalism. She’s driven by a love for good people and good stories, like Ugly Feelings – which embrace and venture without shame into the joys and complexities of belonging.
Current Team
Incentives
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
From the writer, Karina Cowperthwaite:
Ugly Feelings explores the questions of mixed-race Asian American identity that have followed me throughout my life. I've grappled with how my whiteness is in conversation with my Asianness. What does it mean to be simultaneously steeped in white privilege but to also be a person of color? How is multiracial identity informed by our families? Friendships? Romantic relationships? How do the media and the communities we interact with and belong to understand mixedness? How does their understanding inform how we see ourselves and the world? As strange hybrid creatures, the perfect examples of post-racial assimilation? Or a distinct and whole identity to celebrate, challenge, and be proud of.
Credit: Ugly Feelings Stage Production
The desire to belong haunts Jenny Mason, a 17-year-old Chinese American girl growing up in the mostly white town of Greenville, Maine. An unreliable narrator, Jenny guides us through her memories, dreams, and nightmares — her reality refracted through a warped and often fantastical lens — as she struggles to understand her biracial identity.
Her world revolves around a tight-knit group: a perfectly assimilated Chinese American mother, a well-meaning white father, her twin brother George, two Asian American best friends, and Alex — the Chinese American new kid from L.A. But when a racially charged mistake of Jenny’s own making fractures that orbit, it upends everything she thought she knew about her place in the world. Together, this group of teenagers figure out how close the chapter on childhood, and say goodbye to the town they've known their entire lives.
Credit: Zoe Thorogood
In “The Mixed Metaphor: Why Does the Half-White, Half-Asian Protagonist Make Us So Anxious?,” Andrea Long Chu writes that:
“If there is one conclusion to be reached from the mixed Asian experience, it is this: People want race. They want race to win them something, to tell them everything they were never told; they want friendship from it, or sex, or even love; and sometimes, they just want to be something or to have something to be…There is, after all, a reason that people sit together: They don’t want to be alone.”
Jenny wants race.
She wants it to win her something,
tell her everything she was never told,
give her friendship, sex, even love.
Above all, she wants race to give her something to be.
At the end of the day...she just doesn’t want to be alone.
Ugly Feelings was originally written as Karina’s senior thesis submitted to the Department of English at Harvard University. It was performed as a stage play in 2023 at the Loeb Drama Center and workshopped through The New Play Development Residency with Fresh Ink Theatre Company and CHUANG Stage in 2025. It was nominated for a Hoopes Prize in recognition of outstanding research and scholarly work.
As we adapt Ugly Feelings from stage to screen, we’re crafting a visual language that mirrors Jenny’s chaotic and unreliable inner world. The film blends surrealism and satire to reflect the intensity of her emotional experience. Tonally and visually, we shift between heightened stylization and grounded realism, capturing both the absurdity and sincerity of coming-of-age.
The project shares a tonal kinship with Fleabag (Jenny’s fourth-wall-breaking asides), Never Have I Ever (the complicated intimacy of high school friendships), Everything Everywhere All At Once (genre-defying surrealism and theatricality), The Worst Person in the World (formally marked coming-of-age chapters), and Slanted (candid exploration of internalized whiteness).
Ugly Feelings explores the emotional reality of racial ambiguity in mixed-race identities and cultural longing in a voice we rarely see onscreen. We believe there’s an urgency in creating space for flawed, stylized, emotionally volatile explorations of Asian identity – ones that feel riskier, messier, and more honest. This story doesn’t want to redeem its characters but rather give them the freedom to be angry, confused, performative, or even cruel...and asks the audience to sit with that discomfort.
We're aiming to raise a $10,000 development budget through Seed & Spark as part of the AAPI Renaissance Rally. During June - August 2025, we'll adapt the stage play, and begin assembling a passionate team of collaborators. We’re committed to preserving the play's complexity through every layer of adaptation—casting, performance, visual language—by assembling a creative crew that reflects the world we’re portraying.
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Script & Casting Development
Costs $2,500
Support workshops, readings, and outreach with AANHPI creatives and community partners.
Pitch Deck, Lookbook, & Visuals
Costs $1,200
Design our pitch deck and lookbook to showcase story, team, and vision.
Sizzle Reel
Costs $2,000
Film a sizzle reel to bring our story to life for partners and supporters.
Line Producer
Costs $2,500
Bring on a line producer to budget and schedule our AANHPI-driven feature adaptation.
Legal & Admin
Costs $800
Cover LLC setup and basic legal fees to launch our feature adaptation.
Social Media Content Creator
Costs $1,000
Bring on a creator with skill in graphic design and social media to help create social media content and expand our outreach on platforms.
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
Karina Cowperthwaite – Screenwriter
Karina Cowperthwaite is a writer and director based in Cambridge, MA. A recent graduate of Harvard College with a degree in English and Theater, Dance and Media. Karina is passionate about uplifting Asian American work and challenging her definition of what Asian American art can be. As Co-President of the Asian Student Arts Project, she directed a Pan-Asian adaptation of Legally Blonde, the first musical on Harvard's campus with an all Asian cast which was featured on NBC News as well as writing, directing and acting in an original play titled Ugly Feelings at the Loeb Drama Center which was nominated for a Hoopes Prize. For her work, Karina was awarded the Lee Patrick Award in Drama, The David McCord Prize and Harvard College Women's Center Transformational Leadership Award. Karina currently serves as the Artistic Coordinator and Special Assistant to Artistic Director Diane Paulus at the American Repertory Theater at Harvard University.
Grace Sun – Director
Grace Sun is a Chinese-Canadian filmmaker, and the Artist-in-Residence at the Harvard University Signet Society of Arts & Letters. She writes and directs coming-of-age stories, and romantic comedies & dramas. As a former Creative Director for the Film and Entertainment team at Instagram in New York, Grace spent a decade exploring film marketing through the lens of innovation, connection, and culture. She's passionate about amplifying the work of underrepresented artists and widening the spectrum of stories that get seen, told, and celebrated.
Cynthia Liu – Video Editor
Cynthia Liu is a photographer & documentary filmmaker based in NYC. Her work has been recognized by the Hearst Journalism Awards, the Asian American Journalists Association, and College Photographer of the Year. She was previously a video fellow at Business Insider, an English teacher in France, and a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Journalism. She’s driven by a love for good people and good stories, like Ugly Feelings – which embrace and venture without shame into the joys and complexities of belonging.