Experiencing Interruptions?

DOG, BRUH!

LOGLINE: Remember that one time in 1995 when Shawn appropriated Black culture to ask his crush and best friend to the prom?

SYNOPSIS: In 1995 Los Angeles, Filipino teen Shawn sets out to ask his best friend Nico’s sister to the prom that night. He does so by affixing onto himself a caricature of a Black person, and therefore must realize that doing so is wrong, on so many levels. Eventually, he gets help from his favorite rapper, and runs to apologize to Nico before Nico leaves for the prom himself.

  • Katja
    Director
  • Katja
    Writer
  • Yingu Chen
    Producer
  • Akaash Tumuluri
    Director of Photography
  • Katja
    Sound Designer
  • Yingu Chen
    Sound Recordist
  • Akaash Tumuluri
    Production Designer
  • Matthew Mitchell Espinosa
    Key Cast
    "Shawn"
  • Henrie Thompson
    Key Cast
    "Nico"
  • Maya Bello
    Key Cast
    "Kelly"
  • Trodarius Provo
    Key Cast
    "Luv-A Man"
  • Tony Cole
    Assistant Director & Script Supervisor
  • Keith Berlanga
    1st AC
  • Max Huang
    Key Grip
  • Jordan Manlagnit
    2nd AC
  • Paris Baker
    Costumer
  • Talis Kroehler
    Production Assistant
  • Project Type:
    Short, Student
  • Genres:
    Comedy, Musical
  • Runtime:
    5 minutes 57 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    September 1, 2022
  • Production Budget:
    1,500 USD
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital, SONY
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    Yes - University of Southern California
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
Director Biography - Katja

Katja (that's it!) is a writer/director studying to become a better Writer/Director and Assistant Director at USC's MFA Film and TV Production program. "Dog, Bruh!" is her first "bigger" short film production since starting her education as a filmmaker.

Born in the Philippines, she has hopped around the opposite US coasts, conducting her undergrad at Pace University in New York City as a Pforzheimer Honors Scholar, where she studied Film Theory and found a love for stand-up comedy.

Most recently, she has worked as a 1st Assistant Director for a number of USC MFA thesis projects including "Agua de tu Madre," "Cypress Park," "Gold Dogma," and "Dallas & Delilah," as well as a flurry of MFA thesis projects as a 2nd Assistant Director. She also helped produce two MFA animated thesis films-- "Camp Kona" and "Kilig!"

All of these stories that she has had the privilege to work on have a common through line: they are stories about BIPOC, queer people, women, or some beautiful combination of these intersectionalities. As much as she can, she hopes to continue championing the stories of marginalized people in any capacity-- either specifically focusing on the struggles of the reality of marginalization, or simply *being*, as they move through life following their own hearts.

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Director Statement

At its core, "Dog, Bruh!" is a story about puppy love, under the unfortunate misappropriation of Blackness by an Asian teenage boy. Set in 1995, Shawn-- who now calls himself DeShawn-- attempts to impress his Black best friend (and crush), Nico by acting the way he thinks a Black person acts. When that doesn't work, he goes home and studies their favorite rapper Luv-A Man a little harder, in the hopes of finding some answer that will help him convince Nico to be his prom date before it's too late. Instead, Luv-A Man teaches him a lesson he was not expecting to learn. "Dog, Bruh!" is, as a result, a rap musical that you can expect to bounce around to while asking yourself, "Should I be enjoying this right now?"

When I set out to make "Dog, Bruh!", it was at a time when of stories of violence against Asian Americans were making the news so often that I couldn't check my phone without seeing at least one new headline a day. The assailants were almost always white, but I noticed one glaring difference when an assailant happened to be Black: the comments on those posts were so significantly full of hatred and racism towards Black people. It's a very tricky, uniquely Asian-American thing to witness-- my community was victim to so much state-sanctioned hurt and pain so often, largely thanks to Covid-related racism, that they were looking to blame someone for it. We're considered the Model Minority, which comes with a lot of privilege (given our proximity to whiteness), but it also comes with the reality that our "exemplary" nature as Asians is used as a weapon against other minorities. In simpler terms, we are pitted against other minorities, and rewarded for being racist to them. Why, then, does my community so often appropriate Blackness, when we largely do not show up to ally with our Black neighbors when they are victims to systemic villains like police brutality or unjust rulings? What gives us the right to take from Blackness what we want while we maintain our inaction and/or blatant racism?

..."Dog, Bruh!" is a comedy. And perhaps a finger-wagging warning. Practically none of these dark awarenesses I had are meant to be intensely noticeable when you watch and sing along for its five-minute runtime. But it's there-- I hope, with as much love and respect as I can muster, that the folks who see themselves in Shawn, who borrow from Blackness, can recognize that that appropriation is, like, *super lame*, and especially when paired with inaction and racism, explicit or implicit.

"Gayme recognize gayme."