The summer before high school marks the complexities of our teenage years – like a roller coaster built on a teenager’s overly hormonal and socially complicated railings. But at our most vulnerable, we often find our most kindred connections.

These are the tracks on which Sean Wang sets Dìdi, the writer-director’s semi-autobiographical feature debut.

“It's been like seven years of living with this movie, and it goes back to when I was 13,” says Wang. “The process was very deliberate in the sense that it was my first movie, and I wanted to take my time with it. I wanted to make sure it was something that felt personal and could be something that didn't just feel like ‘This guy made a movie just to make a movie.”

The Taiwanese-American filmmaker’s mantle carries is filled with titles that continue to influence who he is and what he creates. A USC School of Cinematic Arts graduate and 2023 Oscar nominee, directing has become more than a passion for Wang. His latest project touches upon his journey through Dìdi’s 13-year-old protagonist who is on the cusp of high school, lost in the fog that is his labeled identity.
 
We are met with Fremont, California’s Chris Wang– aka Dìdi–in the feature, a hormonal teenager, skater, wannabe videographer, and perpetual loner dazed with the struggle of understanding his Asian-American roots and role as a grandson, son, brother, and friend. Within its sunny, summer sets and Bay Area confines, Wang notes that this is his ode to the fractured voyages of boyhood, a love letter to a past that continues to craft who he is, and an illumination of young adulthood’s effect on all who endure it– as seen with its dedication to his mother.
 
He shares, “I try to put as much of myself into [Dìdi]. We were trying to do something that could explore things that were both incredibly fun and irreverent, and stupid and silly, but also really not ignore the pain, loneliness, sadness, and insecurity of adolescent boyhood.”
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However, while Dìdi’s trek to self-discovery differs from the now 29-year-old’s stability as a devoted director, Wang didn’t always know filmmaking would be the brush he’d pick up in life. In fact, his exposure to art with a camera all began with a slew of 1-minute skateboarding videos he’d started watching on YouTube. The videographer? None other than the film legend Spike Jonze himself.  
 
We circle back to a notable detail in the film: his proxy’s apparent love for those noted videos and Jonze’s feature as Dìdi’s proverbial dead squirrel– and yes, the squirrel was hilarious and it did serve a purpose.
 
“Spike is the reason I became a filmmaker. His DNA is baked into the movie so to get to have him not just be in the movie as a dead squirrel, but to name drop him as well…,” Wang pauses, a smile etched on his face as he takes in the joys of working with his hero. “I pinched myself a lot when the credits would scroll and it said his name. I'm just kind of like,‘Wow. Fourteen-year-old Sean would be really freaking out about this.’”

Much like Jonze, Wang’s origins lie in a YouTube channel decorated with amateur-filmed skateboarding videos and a love for old coming-of-age films. Even now his filmmaking carries a tenacity best attributed to this online personality and influenced by movies he’s grown to love, namely Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me and The 400 Blows. Today, Wang’s career consists of an Academy-Award nomination for his similarly-spirited, grandmother-centered documentary short Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó, a deal with Disney+ to host the short, a festival circuit for his directorial debut that concluded with an Audience and Special Jury award at Sundance, and now a theatrical run for the same film.
 
I question if the continual urge to create influenced his later work. He laughs, noting that beyond featuring the comedy Superbad in both the short and debut– which he disappointedly says was more of a logistical add-in than a comical through line– and even beyond his grandmother’s appearance in the film as well, his most recent work is built upon the foundations of all that he’s done before.

“I think so many of the shorts I made in the last seven years feel like tangents of Dìdi,” Wang explains with a chuckle.“We wanted to make sure what we create felt alive and electric and not stifled with people just reading dialogue and [Dìdi] is, in some parts, all of them smashed together.
 
I further the conversation, curious where this passion continues to stem from. Eager with an answer, Wang notes that it comes from an “intimate place of wanting to explore something that is inside me. The things that make films really special is heart…,” and his stories, “...come from that very deep personal place.”
 
It’s almost melancholic– this homegrown chronicle of his adolescence chipping away at an identity he now basks in. Wang directs with his youth as his guide and his journey toward understanding his identity as an Asian-American, skateboarding, camera-loving son, grandson, and friend defines every creative decision he makes. Here, he lets his creativity roam free, unbound, and honest as it makes its way to us; and Wang stands front and center at its arrival, ready to describe his creations the best way he can: “It’s bonkers.”