Lucky Fish

Director   Emily May Jampel
Country   USA
Year   2022
Languages   English
Genre   Drama, Romance, Coming-of-Age
Running Time   8 min

Two Asian-American teenagers meet in the bathroom of a Chinese restaurant while having dinner with their families.

This film is part of Shorts: The Bright Sides program.

Director’s Statement

As I’ve gotten older I’ve realized that this sense of generational disconnect is actually extremely common amongst many Asian Americans and queer people in my generation and how this shared experience of feeling like outsiders growing up can actually have the potential to bring us closer together as adults. I really wanted to revisit this subject matter and period in my life with a sense of humor, warmth and optimism by capturing these feelings of isolation while offering a small, if temporary, moment of relief from it. I’m mostly excited about getting to tell a queer modern-day coming-of-age story about two Asian-American women that isn’t a coming-out story, but mostly just about these two young individuals existing and briefly connecting in the world as they both navigate their own journeys.

This film is a coming-of-age romance between two Asian-American teenagers who bond over the shared experience of feeling like outsiders in their own families. During this unexpected encounter they discover a temporary escape from the outside world and form a brief but lasting moment of connection. It’s a simple and contained story where a lot happens in small but meaningful ways. This story was inspired by my own experience growing up as a mixed-race Asian American and the sense of disconnect I felt with the Chinese side of my family and my memories of these long never-ending dinners that I’m sure many Chinese-Americans have probably experienced where the adults would gossip and play mahjong for hours, while all the kids would play gameboy and hang out together by the fish tanks.

Director’s Bio

Emily May Jampel (she/they​)

Emily has curated film programs for Metrograph and Allies in Arts. She previously worked as a development executive at the Academy Award-Nominated and Peabody Award-Winning production company The Department of Motion Pictures (BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD, PATTI CAKE$, MONSTERS & MEN, PHILLY D.A.) and was an Associate Producer on the podcast series OPERATOR, produced in partnership with Topic and Wondery.

Emily is a filmmaker from Oʻahu based in New York City. Her short film Lucky Fish has played at festivals including Palm Springs International Film Festival (Winner, Young Cineastes Award, Special Mention, Best LGBTQ+ Short), Champs-Élysées (Winner, Audience Award), Outfest L.A., Frameline, Inside Out and Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia, and premiered on NOWNESS Asia. She is one of the 2023 Recipients of The New Voices Filmmaker Grant, a new initiative from NewFest in partnership with Netflix.