“Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó”: Interview of Sean Wang, His Grandmothers

The place I am From: Now and Gen options in-conversation items between generations — like a youthful girl and her grandmother — discussing a subject like magnificence rituals, funds, or marriage. We sat down with filmmaker Sean Wang and his grandmothers, Yi Yan Fuei and Chang Li Hua, the topics of Wang’s Oscar-nominated documentary brief, “Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó.” Learn their heartwarming chat about friendship under.

In 2021, within the wake of elevated anti-Asian violence and the continued pandemic, filmmaker Sean Wang moved again house to San Francisco. There, he began observing — then filming — Nǎi Nai and Wài Pó, his 94-year-old paternal grandmother and 83-year-old maternal grandmother, respectively, who occur to be inseparable associates and roommates. As he captured the mundane moments and joys of their day by day lives, he created “Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó,” an Oscar-nominated documentary brief that lately landed on Disney+.

The Taiwanese American director — whose debut function movie, “Dìdi,” lately premiered on the 2024 Sundance Movie Pageant — primarily filmed a sequence of house movies, which he become a stupendous 17-minute “private love letter” to his grandmothers. “As a lot as this film is about my grandmothers and my relationship with them, it’s about friendship, sisterhood, and the bonds that you just preserve and water in outdated age,” he tells POPSUGAR. “I am not 86, 96 years outdated. However I feel [their friendship] is an effective north star — hopefully, the friendships I’ve now that I really feel are deeply particular in my life, those that I do know will final, that I hope may very well be Nǎi Nai and Wài Pó in our outdated age, are nonetheless as foolish and vibrant and enjoyable.”

Forward of the 2024 Oscars, Wang and his grandmothers talk about their decades-long bond, the ability of friendship, and the life classes they’ve taught each other.

On Nǎi Nai and Wài Pó’s Distinctive Friendship

Chang Li Hua (Wài Pó): Us having the ability to spend our days collectively and stay collectively can also be a type of destiny and luck. Nǎi Nai is older than me by 10 years, so I’ve at all times seen her like my very own massive sister. I’m youthful than her by 10 years, so anytime I’m able to assist her and maintain her, I’ll do my greatest to take action. We’ve virtually all the identical hobbies. Studying the newspaper, exercising within the yard, going out for walks. Each day, we go to our orchard collectively to examine and see which tree has grown fruits. Each day, we eat fruits collectively, and we take the peels of fruit and veggies to the yard and make fertilizer.

Yi Yan Fuei (Nǎi Nai): [Wài Pó and I] have the identical angle. We each love associates, we like to train, and we like to learn the information, so we’re capable of be collectively harmoniously, identical to sisters. Sean is aware of too. He turned shut with us, and I cherish the time we spent collectively day by day.

Sean Wang: They’re my grandmothers. And as their type of mischievous, younger filmmaker grandson, I feel our relationship is one in every of such pleasure, silliness, and this childlike, youthful vitality. They point out it within the movie that I carry it out of them, however additionally they carry it out of me. I feel that leads to some enjoyable collaborations and these foolish movies that we make. Plenty of these had been the seeds that turned one half of “Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó.” The silliness, the chaotic pleasure, I wish to name it, that balances out of with the extra poignant, deeply human grounded pains of their lives.

On What They Discovered About Every Different All through Filming

Sean Wang: I feel I knew all of the broad strokes of their lives, however getting to actually discuss to them about their childhoods and their lives earlier than they had been my grandmothers was actually enlightening. However reducing to current day — and perhaps I at all times knew this — I discovered simply how a lot of those inventive spirits they’re.

A lot of this movie was only a method to give them a platform that I feel no one had ever actually thought of them for. They dance, play, and permit their silliness to take middle stage. And now that they will the Oscars and being enveloped on this world that is filled with spectacle and fancy attire, they’re actually loving it and getting to precise a muscle that they so clearly have, that nobody has ever allowed them to flex.

Yi Yan Fuei (Nǎi Nai): Sean was very approachable with us outdated folks. He did not deal with us as outdated folks in any respect. He joked with us day by day. He did not even act like we had been dozens of years older than him. We had been very comfortable having enjoyable collectively.

Chang Li Hua (Wài Pó): I discovered that Sean was very gifted — he has a terrific imaginative and prescient. Additionally, he was very affected person with us after we had been filming the film. He would educate us the right way to pose. He is a child who loves to show his associates. He is in a position to hang around with outdated folks, youngsters, or associates of the identical age. He is a younger man with a full of life persona, but in addition works very arduous.

On the Life Classes They’ve Taught Every Different

Sean Wang: There is a line within the film that Nǎi Nai says that has actually caught with me. She says, “The times we spend feeling pleasure and the times we spend feeling ache are the identical days spent, so I am going to decide on pleasure.” I feel that quite simple resolution is a robust one: selecting pleasure. Particularly for somebody like her who’s within the twilight years of her life, understanding that her days are extra restricted than mine. In our dumpster hearth of a world at instances, permitting your self to decide on pleasure and have fun the folks round you is a worthy resolution.

Yi Yan Fuei (Nǎi Nai): This younger child can get alongside so effectively with others. He does not deal with us like outdated folks; he nonetheless shouts like us younger folks in entrance of us day by day. When he is right here, now we have a really comfortable life. We must be like him, whether or not he is younger or outdated. He’s our pal.

Chang Li Hua (Wài Pó): He helped us be taught we’re not ineffective after we are outdated. We are able to nonetheless be helpful folks after we are outdated. We are able to nonetheless dance, make motion pictures, and be actors. Outdated folks mustn’t underestimate themselves. The aged are additionally able to doing so many issues.

This interview has been translated, edited, and condensed for readability.

Yerin Kim is the options editor at POPSUGAR, the place she helps form the imaginative and prescient for particular options and packages throughout the community. A graduate of Syracuse College’s Newhouse Faculty, she has over 5 years of expertise within the popular culture and ladies’s life-style areas. She’s keen about spreading cultural sensitivity by the lenses of life-style, leisure, and elegance.