Earboy

Earboy is a 13-minute standalone short film that also serves as a prequel to my feature film in development, Han. Earboy follows a young boy and his single mother as their relationship reaches a breaking point after a home haircut goes wrong, bringing deeper emotional wounds to the surface. In this story, I explore the tender yet complex relationship between mother and son, dealing with their emotional scars, and the challenges of coming of age in a broken home.

This story is deeply personal to me. As a child, my mother won custody after separating from my father, and we ended up living in a shelter-home. At just five years old, I barely remembered her - she felt like a stranger to me. During a home haircut, she accidentally snipped part of my ear off - a moment that, painful as it was, became the first of many that shaped our unbreakable bond. That day, I began to see her not just as a mother, but as someone fighting to rebuild our lives.

I’m telling this story now because my parents kept the truth about their separation hidden until I was 28. I’m still processing the pain we all endured - my mother’s sacrifices, my father’s absence, and the effects it had on me. Through Earboy, I hope to bring the audience into Ha Yun’s world and feel her deep, flawed, yet heroic love for her son as she battles her own trauma. This is my directorial debut short since film school, and it’s a story I’ve carried with me for years, waiting for the right time to tell.