The 30th Annual San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival is set to kick off on March 8th at the Castro Theater.

This year’s festival will begin with the premiere of 90-minute independent film “White Frog,” directed by Quentin Lee.

In a calm, suburban setting, this coming-of-age film follows 15-year-old high schooler Nick Young, who appears to have the perfect life with his successful father, his stay-at-home mother and his fun-loving older brother whom he idolizes.

Despite his picturesque lifestyle, Nick has Asperger’s syndrome and is often neglected and misunderstood by his family.

Everything changes the day his brother suddenly dies and Nick is forced to step up for himself and aid his family through the tragedy in his own unique way.

The film features a cast of stars who are recognizable in mainstream media today, such as BD Wong of “Law and Order,” Harry Shum Jr. of “Glee,” Booboo Stewart of “The Twilight Saga” and Joan Chen who is this year’s Festival Honoree.

Stewart, who plays Nick, spoke with The Pioneer on how he first heard about the film through his agent and after reading the script and discussing it with his father, they both found it to be an amazing project to be involved in.

“I spent a lot of time on the Internet researching and watching blogs posted by other people that have the same disease [Asperger’s syndrome],” he said. “This role really allowed me to stretch as an actor and I really enjoyed the challenge.”

Chen, Wong and Shum Jr. were unavailable to comment on their characters.

The idea to write the screenplay for “White Frog” started off as merely a hobby for the mother and daughter team Fabienne and Ellie Wen.

Ellie explained how some of the characters and settings are based on family and friends and experiences she went through in high school.

They both wanted to write a story that would hopefully help people become more accepting of themselves and others.

“We want people to embrace who they are,” Ellie said. “Unfortunately, both my mom and I have close friends who died before they were able to truly live and be themselves.”
When Ellie showed a copy of the first draft to her producer Joel Soisson, he immediately said he wanted to produce it with her. From there, everything else fell into place, such as hiring the people she and her mother wanted, including Ellie’s mentor David Henry Hwang, who serves as the executive producer and script advisor for the film.

Lee was drawn to the script immediately upon receiving it.

“When Ellie and Fabienne first sent me the script, after reading it I knew at once that it came from a very personal place. And as I moved forward with the project, I held onto that very personal perspective all the way through production,” he explained. “It’s sort of the guiding light for me that keeps reminding me of why I was making the movie.”
Despite the challenges of maintaining a very limited budget and schedule for the film, Lee explained how his ultimate challenge as the director was to manage the technical and creative elements in order to create the vision of the story.

“My youngest sister was coincidentally diagnosed with Asperger’s literally two weeks before the production, so I kept thinking that I was making a movie for her,” he said.
When asked what he hopes for people to gain from this film, Lee spoke of how like his previous films he hopes for people to think little about the movie itself and instead think of the message to become more tolerant towards people who are different.

“We hope that people are moved and entertained by the film. We really hope it gives courage to people to be themselves and also be accepting others who are ‘different,’” Ellie said when asked the same question. “It’s a big goal, but we hope to make the world a better place through filmmaking.”

While “White Frog” is set to be screened at the International Asian American Film Festival along with other film festivals, Lee hopes to pick up a distributor for the film by this fall.