Sleight of Heart

This film was born from watching many of my friends become fathers. Growing up, I always associated fatherhood with a certain kind of masculinity—stoic, headstrong, decisive. A father was someone who knew what he wanted, who led with certainty. But when I looked at my friends—playing video games, watching anime, being silly—it contrasted sharply with the image I had in my mind, especially as a Chinese American. I started thinking about what it means to be a “modern” father and how our generation is redefining that role in ways our parents may not fully understand.

At the same time, I wanted to explore something deeply universal—the struggles of dating, the weight of generational expectations, and the delicate task of raising a child in a world that often feels unprepared for us. Fatherhood, in many ways, is the great equalizer. No matter who we are, we inherit the responsibility of shaping another life, of trying to do better than those before us, even when we’re still figuring things out ourselves.

I’ve always loved magic—the art of it, the performance, the illusion. But for this story, I wanted something that would both accentuate and contrast the image of the traditional father. A magician. A struggling magician. There’s something inherently funny and tragic about it—someone dedicated to wonder and spectacle, yet barely holding things together in real life. In a way, it mirrors the absurdity of modern fatherhood, where you’re expected to be both the authority figure and the entertainer, the protector and the fool.

But at its core, this film is about loss—how it shapes us, how we carry it, and how we move forward. I wanted to make something honest—something that reflects the contradictions and complexities of modern fatherhood, of being caught between generations, between cultures, between the people we were and the people we’re trying to become.