Focus Features Acquires Worldwide Rights to Sean Wang’s Sundance Winner ‘Dìdi (弟弟)’
Focus Features has acquired the worldwide rights to Dìdi (弟弟), written and directed by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Sean Wang, following its premiere in competition at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, where it received critical and audience acclaim, winning both the U.S. Dramatic Audience Award and the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Best Ensemble Cast.
The film is set in 2008 in the Bay Area, and is a funny, irreverent, and affecting ode to first-generation teenagers navigating the joy and chaos of adolescence as seen through the lens of a 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy, played by Izaac Wang (Good Boys, Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon). The film is produced by Carlos López Estrada, Josh Peters, Valerie Bush, and Sean Wang. It stars Joan Chen, Shirley Chen, and Chang Li Hua. Dìdi (弟弟) is an Antigravity Academy and Spark Features production- with Chris Quintos Cathcart, Tyler Boehm, Robina Riccitiello, Joan Chen, Chris Columbus, Eleanor Columbus, Dave A. Liu and Jennifer J. Pritzker serving as executive producers.
Dìdi (弟弟) marks the first release for Carlos López Estrada’s Antigravity Academy, a production company and talent incubator specializing in creating opportunities for emerging filmmakers.
After the film’s wildly successful premiere at Sundance, Wang quickly became an emerging director to watch [Read our review of Dìdi here]. Just last week, Wang was nominated for an Oscar for his documentary short Nǎi Nai and Wài Pó, which premiered at SXSW last year and won the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award. It will be released on Disney+ and Hulu on February 9th.
“Dìdi (弟弟) is the movie I’ve always wanted to see: a coming-of-age story set in a place I know, starring people who look like those I knew, during a time when we are the worst versions of ourselves having the best time of our lives. It’s been a dream to see the film resonate with so many others since our premiere at Sundance, and I’m so excited to partner with Focus to get to share this story with even more audiences who will hopefully be able to see a version of themselves in it as well.”
Said Kiska Higgs, President of Production & Acquisitions at Focus Features, “Everyone at Focus saw a little of themselves in Dìdi, so we can’t wait to share Sean Wang’s brilliant vision of a Californian misfit with audiences everywhere, who will also fall in love with 13-year-old Wang-Wang as he stumbles his way into high school.”
The deal was negotiated by WME Independent and UTA Independent Film Group on behalf of the filmmakers.
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
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