What if your mom came back as a fish? Current Entertainment and News Media Fellow and Entertainment Lab Alumnus Jeremy Hsing’s most recent short, FISH, answers that question. His answers led him to win a Grand Jury Prize at the 2023 Astoria Film Festival last weekend.
We meet Tiger, played beautifully by co-writer Patrick Zhang, while he is listening to voicemails from his estranged and recently deceased mom. All of a sudden, the fish keeping him company from a far begins to speak, and he realizes that it is his mom reincarnated. Inspired by Everything Everywhere All At Once, Hsing and Zhang were interested in “finding an absurd premise and taking it very seriously.” This story asks big questions around grief and self-acceptance while creating comedic moments that are bound to happen when a son is talking to his fish/mom.
One of these hilarious scenes happens when Tiger is fighting with his mom about ordering scallion pancakes over her request to order fish. On the surface, the whole scene is absurd, but simultaneously the argument gives the audience a glimpse at generational differences that exist in this relationship. This scene, in context with the rest of the short, is clearly a metaphorical fight about Tiger’s sexuality.
“We wanted it to be a human story with queer undertones,” Hsing said regarding the choice to never explicitly talk about Tiger’s queerness. Hsing and Zhang were concerned that an explicit fight about his sexuality would lead the audience to the reductive conclusion that Tiger’s identity is the main cause for the strained relationship.
The story is largely inspired by Zhang’s personal experiences and naturally came out during the pitching process. Hsing saw his role as a collaborator and helping bring Zhang’s vision to life. While you can tell stories about characters who don’t have the same identities and experiences as you, it is important to “come from the right perspective and talk to those who have authentic experiences whenever possible,” Hsing said.
Many of Hsing’s projects implement intersectional identities “not to check off a quota or appeal to mass audience, but because it is a mirror of society.” However, Hsing always comes back to that he is primarily focused on telling human stories because by focusing solely on a character’s identity, complex human experiences are left unexplored.
Almost every aspect of this film was intentional – from the colors to the music to the direction the fish is swimming. Hsing used an original score to explore Tiger’s internal emotions and colors to show Tiger’s melancholic arc to self-acceptance. Given the fish focus, water imagery played a big role in the film. Hsing explained that water is innately transient – similar to life itself.
However, there were some serendipitous accidents. When they showed up on the day to film at the restaurant, coy fish were drawn in chalk on the sidewalk. Of course those fish had to make it into the film and are now the segue into the restaurant while Tiger has his mom in his mouth after the fishbowl breaks (I’m not kidding).
Hsing also shared about his experiences as a disabled director on set. In the past, his work has explicitly explored disability, and while this short does not, many of the crew members identify as disabled. At the beginning of every day of shooting, he would disclose his own disabilities to the crew “to set the tone around accessibility.” He said that doing that everyday helped create a safe space. By opening up himself, he created an opportunity for people to share and openly discuss their own experiences with disability. Having disabled creatives behind the camera even for projects that do not directly address disability still have a ripple effect.
Hsing is currently busy working on many new projects including a new short in post-production, a sci-fi pilot, and a romantic comedy feature. Until then, we will enjoy watching this magical and precisely crafted short film FISH.
