Korean American writer and director Josh Kim journeys to the Hong Kong — Asia Film Financing Forum with “Camellia Girl,” which is in development.
His track record notably includes Thailand’s 2015 Oscar entry “How to Win at Checkers (Every Time),” the HBO Asia horror-drama series “Forbidden” and a body of shorts for Apple, Google, NPR and the Wall Street Journal.
The story is about two Korean American sisters who return home for their father’s funeral in rural Texas. The older sister leads a successful and stable life. The younger one, however, was addicted to drugs, dropped out of college and has built up debt trying to realize a dream of becoming a singer. When the two sisters arrive home, they learn that their father has left a rare antique fan worth more than a half a million dollars “to the child who finds it first.” This starts a scramble that will forever change the lives of the sisters.
“’Camellia Girl’ is a project I started writing after my father passed away. My mom has Alzheimer’s and he was taking care of her. So, after my father passed, I have been spending a lot more time at home in Texas with my mother,” Kim said.
“The title comes from a song the main character sings in the movie. It’s her father’s favorite song. It also happened to be my father’s favorite tune. It’s an old Korean trot song [a Korean music genre] that evokes a sense of yearning and loss. If you ask people in Korea what this loss is, everyone has a different answer. Some say it’s a lover who found a new life. For others, it’s a longing for a time when everything still seemed possible. This is the inspiration of ‘Camellia Girl,’ a story about sibling bonds, second chances and caretaking for the ones we love.”
Kim is looking to complete a $2.3 million budget at HAF and attach co-producers and a sales agent. The film is produced by Douglas Seok through Sea Oak Studios. Seok is a producer and cinematographer who was previously involved in the breakout Cambodian indie film “White Building” and a trio of films by Lee Isaac Chung, including Chung’s Oscar-winning “Minari.” He is also working on Chung’s upcoming “Twisters,” for Universal Studios.
“It’s been almost 10 years since I made ‘How to Win at Checkers.’ I went to China after that to work on ‘Folding Beijing,’ but with censorship restrictions and the country closing down with COVID, it became a project I realized was untenable for me to stay on and direct. So, we let [studio] Wanda look for a new director for the Chinese-language version. Films are hard to make. If realized, ‘Camellia Girl’ would be my second movie,” says Kim.
— Variety