Daly City
2024 · 16m · USA
Directed by Nick Hartanto
Tones: humorous, melancholic, tender
An Indonesian boy and his mother bring Chinese takeout to a church potluck and pretend it's a traditional family dish. What begins as a mischievous childhood anecdote becomes a tender exploration of assimilation, identity, and the quiet sacrifices immigrant families make to belong.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Indonesian-American kid passing off Chinese takeout as ancestral food at a church potluck is a specific, lived-in detail I haven't seen before. Diaspora narrative checks the festival boxes, but the Indonesian specificity is rare enough to matter.
Indonesian-American diaspora cinema is genuinely underrepresented, and Hartanto's autobiographical fib-as-assimilation premise has the specificity Lulu Wang brought to The Farewell. Modest in scope, but the cultural window it opens is its own argument.
Sixteen minutes of an Indonesian-American boy passing Chinese takeout off as family cooking at a church potluck — the specificity of the diaspora (Indonesian, not generic Asian-American) is what makes the autobiographical hook land. Ronny Chieng's blurb backs that this opens a window the medium rarely shows.
Reviews
What begins as a light, almost mischievous anecdote becomes a lens through which Hartanto explores assimilation and the double bind of the model-minority myth.
An accomplished, touching and witty portrait of an immigrant family and their quest after an American Dream. Each performance is pitch perfect.
Festivals
- Salute Your Shorts Film Festival 2025, Grand Jury Award (Academy Award-Qualifying)
- Indie Memphis Film Festival 2024
- Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival 2024
- Hawai'i International Film Festival 2024, Nominated - Best Short Narrative
- Woodstock Film Festival 2024, Nominated - Best Short Narrative
- Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival 2025