Andrew Ahn returns to discuss The Wedding Banquet that wasn’t (and the one that was), sacrifices, and being a great Guncle.
More about Andrew Ahn
Andrew Ahn is a queer Korean American filmmaker based in Los Angeles. Ahn’s latest film THE WEDDING BANQUET (Bleecker Street) starring Lily Gladstone, Bowen Yang, and Kelly Marie Tran will premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. His previous film FIRE ISLAND (Searchlight Pictures) was nominated for two Emmy Awards and won the Ensemble Tribute at the 2023 Gotham Awards and a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Film Streaming/TV.
Ahn’s sophomore feature DRIVEWAYS premiered at the 2019 Berlinale and was nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards for Best First Screenplay and Best Lead Actress for Hong Chau. Ahn’s first film SPA NIGHT premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival and won a Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Performance. The film went on to win the 2017 John Cassavetes Film Independent Spirit Award. Ahn has directed both fiction and documentary television, including shows “Bridgerton” and “Generation.”
He has promoted diversity in the arts by mentoring youth filmmakers through programs like Pacific Arts Movement’s Reel Voices, Outfest’s OutSet, and the Sundance Institute’s Native Filmmaker Lab. He graduated from Brown University and received an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts).
More about The Wedding Banquet
From Director Andrew Ahn comes a joyful comedy of errors about a chosen family navigating the disasters and delights of family expectations, queerness, and cultural identity. Angela and her partner Lee have been unlucky with their IVF treatments, but can’t afford to pay for another round. Meanwhile their friend Min, the closeted scion of a multinational corporate empire, has plenty of family money but a soon-to-expire student visa. When his commitment-phobic boyfriend Chris rejects his proposal, Min makes the offer to Angela instead: a green card marriage in exchange for funding Lee’s IVF. But their plans to quietly elope are upended when Min’s skeptical grandmother flies in from Korea unannounced, insisting on an all-out wedding extravaganza.
With a pitch-perfect cast of multigenerational talent that includes Bowen Yang, Academy Award nominee Lily Gladstone, Kelly Marie Tran, Han Gi-Chan, Joan Chen, and Academy Award winner Youn Yuh-Jung, this fresh reimagining of Ang Lee’s beloved, award-winning rom-com teems with humor and heart in a poignant reminder that being part of a family means learning to both accept and forgive.
Watch the trailer.
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