Based On An Actual Lie: Director Lulu Wang's Sundance Hit Oh, she already wants to see it, says Wang. Wang is much more sanguine now about the film industry too. When Lulu Wang initially recounted the tale of her family's unusual struggle with a cancer diagnosis, . But she was suffering a crisis of faith in the film industry she had worked so hard to be a part of. July 16, 2019. "[11], Director Lulu Wang says that she kept the secret from her grandmother during and after film production. It was a little nerve-racking having her so close to the production, she admits. "Thats a long thing that I am still dealing with, with my family, and whether or not we will keep the secret is up in the air, because we want to show her the movie," Wang recently told IndieWire. However, the true story behind The Farewell revealed that Lulu Wang's grandma was still alive when the movie was released in 2019. Making of 'The Farewell': How Lulu Wang Captured Grief and Love With a The film was screened in the U.S. ", It's easy to summarize The Farewell as being about one young woman's internal culture clash, but there's a transcendence to the film easily summed up by the recurring image of the sparrow. The experience of working with This American Life had been so amazing and so pure. The family got a second opinion, and then a third. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. [7][6], Wang said that the film was based on her grandmother's illness, stating that "I always felt the divide in my relationship to my family versus my relationship to my classmates and to my colleagues and to the world that I inhabit. And so you just felt very torn. Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have . Her Nai Nai was played by 75-year-old veteran Chinese star Shuzhen Zhao. -This American Life, All of the doctors predicted that Lulu Wang's Nai Nai had three months left to live after the stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis in 2013. It brought joy to all of us.. Soon, she was recording In Defense of Ignorance, the 2016 TAL episode that features Wang recounting the tale of her familys little white lie, complete with parental interviews and phone calls in Mandarin. "We couldn't tell her what the movie was about!" It was 2016, and Lulu Wang was done with filmmaking.
