DOL

Dol (First Birthday)
Short Narrative Fiction, S16mm, 11:11, 2011
Language: English and Korean with English subtitles
OFFICIAL SELECTION: Sundance Film Festival 2012

LOGLINE
A gay Korean-American man yearns for a family life just out of reach.

SYNOPSIS
Nick is a gay Korean-American man living in Koreatown, Los Angeles with his partner Brian and their dog Chloe. When Nick attends his baby nephew's 'dol,' a traditional Korean first birthday party, he finds himself yearning for a life just out of reach.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
I made this film to come out to my parents.
I knew I wouldn't be able to tell them, to say the words "I'm gay." So I cast my family in the film, but never told them that it was about a gay Korean-American man. The filmmaking process both distracted from and prepared me for the inevitable -- that I would eventually have to show my parents the finished film.
I hoped that showing my parents a film about a gay Korean-American man would help them understand me. I wanted to use the medium of filmmaking to tell them a story, not just say the words "I'm gay." And hopefully the story would better articulate who I am and what I am dealing with: that I struggle with my gay and Korean identities, that I wish I could have a family the way my father had a family, and that despite all this, I am a proud gay man. (andrewahnfilms.com)