SOAK GETS ITS FEET WET @ SXSW

It’s been a ray of sunshine for director Hannah Bang. Her short film Soak will be premiering at this year’s SXSW festival. The recent graduate of USC received her MFA and has the early stages of her post graduate career on the right path.

Due to the pandemic, it was a year of indecision of what to do with her thesis film. Her encouraging peers made her realize how far she has gone with her film caused its submission to SXSW. This is perhaps the best decision she has made.

All in the Family

Soak indicates what is to come from young female filmmakers of Asian descent. The short film focuses on the dynamic of a Korean family. 16-year old Yeonsoo, played Do Eun Lee is the main character of the film. She is trying to convince her mother, played by Chaewon Kim, to come back home. After running away from a controlling father, Yeonsoo’s expects that her mother is going to come back. Little does she know that this isn’t the case as Yeonsoo’s world is about to change. Her mother has her own plans for herself. This is a period of growing pains for Yeonsoo.

Director Hannah Bang shows the structure change to an Asian family with traditional values. At an early age, children are taught that family is priority. Changes do take place and young people have to become resilient to it. Similar to Carol Nguyen’s No Crying At the Dinner Table, coping with this period of growth along with young everyday stresses does not come easy for most.

Soak is powerful in its cinematography symbolizing the period of change. The body language of actress Do Eun Lee reflects this through overcrowding and claustrophobic sequences. This is symbolic of her thoughts as she is finding answers to difficult questions for herself.

Director Hannah Bang will make quite the splash with her first short film Soak. Her unique intense yet organic humble approach to filmmaking will have audiences become aware these notable skills. This is only the beginning for the young filmmaker who is going to be setting the standard. The future in film is definitely in her hands now.

www.soakfilm.net

Click below to watch our FERNTV inteview with Hannah Bang