Variety reports that Coming Home Again has been picked up internationally by sales agent Asian Shadows.
Directed by Wayne Wang and starring Justin Chon, the film is based on a short story of the same name published by Korean-American novelist Lee Chang-rae in The New Yorker.
The plot focuses around a Korean man who takes care of his mother who has terminal cancer. As the Asian American family share the last New Year’s Eve together before, the mother teaches her son her traditional recipes. The film deals with issues including family and mortality, as well as food.
“’Coming Home Again’ is a universal film that touched us by its delicate portrait of a son-mother relationship, by its detailed attention to food, traditions and family roots, and [Wang’s] masterful mise-en-scène,” said Maria Ruggieri, head of sales and acquisitions at Asian Shadows. “Watching the film has been a coming home again for us, bringing us back to the core of our own life experience.”
“We made the film we wanted to make in an open creative atmosphere with the purpose of portraying Asian American characters dealing with their real everyday problems, yet universal in the way that can touch and connect audiences no matter what color their skin may be, nor what language they may speak,” Wang said. “Everyone grows old and everyone at some point in their life has to deal with a parent’s mortality.”
The US-South Korea production also stars Jackie Chung, July Kim and John Lie, and is produced by Donald Young, with Stephen Gong, Heidi Levitt and Jean Noh as executive producers.
Coming Home Again will premiere at the Toronto Intl. Film Festival in September.
