Andrew Ahn | |
---|---|
Born | Los Angeles, California, U.S. | March 10, 1986
Education | |
Occupations |
|
Years active | 2011–present |
Website | andrewahnfilms |
Andrew Ahn (born March 10, 1986) [1] [2] is an American film director and screenwriter who has directed the feature films Spa Night (2016), Driveways (2019), and Fire Island (2022).
Andrew Ahn was born and raised in Los Angeles. He is the son of Korean immigrants. [3] He graduated from Brown University with a degree in English and received a Masters in Fine Arts (MFA) in Film Directing from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). [4]
In 2011, Ahn wrote, directed, edited and produced a short film entitled Andy, which won the Best Narrative Short award at the 2011 San Diego Asian Film Festival. [5] The film has also screened at film festivals including the Boston Asian American Film Festival, the Slamdance Film Festival, the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, Outfest, the Hong Kong Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, the DisOrient Asian American Film Festival of Oregon and the Vancouver Asian Film Festival. [6]
In 2012, Ahn wrote, directed, edited and produced a short film entitled Dol (First Birthday), which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. [3] It won awards including the Grand Jury Award Outstanding Narrative Short Film at Outfest: Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival 2012, and a Jury Award for Best Narrative Short Film at the Polari: Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival 2012. Ahn has stated that he made the film to come out to his parents as gay. [7]
Ahn has also served as an editor on the documentary I Am Divine (2013) (directed by Jeffrey Schwarz) and was a post-production assistant on the documentaries Vito (2011) and Tab Hunter Confidential (2015), both of which were also directed by Jeffrey Schwarz.
Ahn raised funds via Kickstarter for his feature film, entitled Spa Night , about a closeted gay Korean-American teenager who follows his desires and finds more than he bargains for at the Korean spa in the Koreatown of Los Angeles. [8] He developed the screenplay for the film at the 2013 Sundance Screenwriters Lab, which it was selected for, and participated in the Film Independent Screenwriting Lab and the Film Independent Directing Lab with the feature screenplay for the project. For developing the film, he also received a Sundance Institute Cinereach Feature Film Fellow grant. [8]
Ahn signed an October 2023 open letter of artists for ceasefire during the Israeli bombardment of Gaza. [9]
Short film
Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer |
---|---|---|---|---|
2010 | Andy | Yes | Yes | Yes |
2011 | Dol (First Birthday) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Feature film
Year | Title | Director | Writer |
---|---|---|---|
2016 | Spa Night | Yes | Yes |
2019 | Driveways | Yes | No |
2022 | Fire Island | Yes | No |
2025 | The Wedding Banquet | Yes | Yes |
Organizations | Year [lower-alpha 1] | Category | Work | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
AGLIFF Awards | 2012 | Jury Award for Best Narrative Short | Dol (First Birthday) | Won | [10] |
Berlin International Film Festival | 2019 | Teddy Award for Best Feature Film | Driveways | Nominated | [11] |
Crystal Bear for The Best Film (Kplus) | Nominated | [12] | |||
Boston LGBT Film Festival | 2016 | Jury Prize for Best Narrative Feature | Spa Night | Won | [13] |
Gimli Film Festival | 2020 | Best of Fest Audience Choice Award | Driveways | Won | [14] |
Independent Spirit Awards | 2017 | John Cassavetes Award | Spa Night | Won | [15] |
Someone to Watch Award | Nominated | ||||
Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film Festival | 2016 | Best First Feature | Won | [16] | |
Nashville Film Festival | 2016 | New Directors Competition | Nominated | [17] | |
Outfest Los Angeles Film Festival | 2012 | Jury Award Outstanding Narrative Short Film | Dol (First Birthday) | Won | [18] |
Philadelphia Film Festival | 2016 | Best First Feature | Spa Night | Nominated | [19] |
Remi Awards | 2020 | Features - Dramatic / Original | Driveways | Won | [20] |
San Diego Asian Film Festival | 2011 | Best Narrative Short | Andy | Won | [5] |
2016 | George C. Lin Emerging Filmmaker Award | Spa Night | Won | [5] | |
2019 | Best Narrative Feature | Driveways | Won | [21] | |
Seattle International Film Festival | 2019 | New American Cinema Competition | Nominated | [22] | |
Sundance Film Festival | 2012 | Grand Jury Prize Short Films | Dol (First Birthday) | Nominated | [23] |
2016 | Grand Jury Prize Dramatic | Spa Night | Nominated | [24] | |
Jenni Olson is a writer, archivist, historian, consultant, and non-fiction filmmaker based in Berkeley, California. She co-founded the pioneering LGBT website PlanetOut.com. Her two feature-length essay films — The Joy of Life (2005) and The Royal Road (2015) — premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Her work as an experimental filmmaker and her expansive personal collection of LGBTQ film prints and memorabilia were acquired in April 2020 by the Harvard Film Archive, and her reflection on the last 30 years of LGBT film history was published as a chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Queer Cinema from Oxford University Press in 2021. In 2020, she was named to the Out Magazine Out 100 list. In 2021, she was recognized with the prestigious Special TEDDY Award at the Berlin Film Festival. She also campaigned to have a barrier erected on the Golden Gate Bridge to prevent suicides.
The Alfred P. Sloan Prize is an award given each year, starting in 2003, to a film at the Sundance Film Festival. It is one of the Alfred P. Sloan Science in Film Awards.
Outfest is an LGBTQ-oriented nonprofit that produces two film festivals, operates a movie streaming platform, and runs educational services for filmmakers in Los Angeles. Outfest is one of the key partners, alongside the Frameline Film Festival, the New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Film Festival, and the Inside Out Film and Video Festival, in launching the North American Queer Festival Alliance, an initiative to further publicize and promote LGBT film.
The Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC) is a worldwide organization of 29 member countries. It was created as the result of a conference on Asian cinema organized by Cinemaya, the Asian Film Quarterly, in New Delhi in 1990 at the instance and with the support of UNESCO, Paris.
Sridhar Rangayan is an Indian filmmaker who has made films with special focus on queer subjects. His queer films, The Pink Mirror, Yours Emotionally, 68 Pages, Purple Skies, Breaking Free & Evening Shadows have been considered groundbreaking because of their realistic and sympathetic portrayal of the largely closeted Indian gay community. His film The Pink Mirror remains banned in India by the Indian Censor Board because of its homosexual content.
Joe Seo is an American actor known for his role as Kyler Park in the Netflix comedy-drama television series Cobra Kai. His height is 180cm, weighs 85kg.
Justin Jitae Chon is an American actor and filmmaker. He has directed three films, Gook (2017), Ms. Purple (2019), and Blue Bayou (2021). He is also known for portraying Eric Yorkie in The Twilight Saga film series. He is a member of the K-pop parody group Boys Generally Asian.
Sally El-Hosaini is a Welsh-Egyptian BAFTA nominated film director and screenwriter.
Wolfe Video is the oldest and largest exclusive producer and distributor of LGBT films in North America.
Yeun Sang-Yeop, known professionally as Steven Yeun, is an American actor. Yeun initially rose to prominence for playing Glenn Rhee in the television series The Walking Dead (2010–2016). He earned critical acclaim for starring in the thriller Burning (2018) and drama Minari (2020). The latter earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor, making him the first Asian American actor to be nominated. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2021. In 2023, he starred in the dark comedy series Beef (2023), for which he won two Primetime Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award.
James Fall is an American film and television director and film producer. He is best known as the director of Trick (1999) and The Lizzie McGuire Movie (2003).
Andrew Haigh is an English filmmaker. He is best known for writing and directing the films Weekend (2011), 45 Years (2015), Lean on Pete (2017), and All of Us Strangers (2023). He also wrote and produced the HBO series Looking (2014–2015) and its film sequel Looking: The Movie (2016), as well as the BBC Two limited series The North Water (2021).
Ahn Jae-hyun is a South Korean model and actor. He is best known for his roles in television dramas such as You're All Surrounded (2014), Blood (2015), Cinderella with Four Knights (2016), Reunited Worlds (2017), The Beauty Inside (2018), Love with Flaws (2019) and The Real Has Come! (2023).
The MAMA Award for Song of the Year is an honor presented at the annual MAMA Awards, a South Korean awards ceremony presented by Mnet. One of the event's most prestigious daesang awards, it was first awarded during the ceremony's eighth edition in 2006—then titled the Mnet KM Music Festival. Having gone through various name changes since its inaugural ceremony in 1999, it was renamed the Mnet Asian Music Awards from 2009 until it was rebranded as the MAMA Awards in 2022.
Harry Dodge is an American sculptor, performer, video artist, professor, and writer.
Sydney Freeland is a Native American (Navajo) filmmaker. She wrote and directed the short film Hoverboard (2012) and the film Drunktown's Finest (2014), which garnered numerous acclaims after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival. Her second film, Deidra and Laney Rob a Train, debuted at Sundance and was released on Netflix in 2017.
Spa Night is a 2016 American drama film directed by Andrew Ahn and starring Joe Seo. It was shown in the U.S. Dramatic Competition section at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. At Sundance, Joe Seo won the Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Performance.
Beach Rats is a 2017 American coming-of-age drama film written and directed by Eliza Hittman. It stars Harris Dickinson in his feature film debut, with Madeline Weinstein and Kate Hodge in supporting roles. It follows an aimless Brooklyn teenager who struggles to reconcile his competing sexual desires, leaving him hurtling towards irreparable consequences.
Suicide Kale is a 2016 American dark comedy film, directed by Carly Usdin and written by Brittani Nichols. The film centers on Jasmine and Penn, a lesbian couple who unexpectedly find a hidden suicide note in the home of their friends Billie and Jordan. The film premiered at the Queer Hippo International LGBT Film Festival in Houston, Texas on April 3, 2016. Usdin won the Audience Award for Best First U.S. Dramatic Feature at 2016 Outfest.
Driveways is a 2019 American drama film directed by Andrew Ahn and starring Hong Chau, Lucas Jaye, and Brian Dennehy, from an original screenplay by playwrights Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen. The film had its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival on February 10, and its American premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival April 30. FilmRise released it via video-on-demand in the United States on May 7, 2020, in lieu of a theatrical release due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It tells the story of a woman who has come to the house of her late sister to pack it up and prepare it for sale. While there, her young son strikes up a friendship with an elderly widower living next door.