Private Project

Sliding

Man meets woman at a bar....however things are not quite what it seems.

Screener pw: sliding-film

  • Ronald Lee
    Director
  • Ronald Lee
    Writer
  • Kelvin Wong
    Writer
  • Amy Starkley
    Writer
  • Dave Forrest
    Writer
  • Ronald Lee
    Producer
  • David Chen
    Producer
  • Jennifer Poskin-Wittenberg
    Producer
  • Zhuonan Sun
    Key Cast
  • Rosanna Liang
    Key Cast
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Genres:
    Romance, Drama
  • Runtime:
    4 minutes 24 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    April 1, 2024
  • Country of Origin:
    Canada
  • Country of Filming:
    Canada
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital, Arri Alexa, Atlas Orion
  • Aspect Ratio:
    2.35:1
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Ronald Lee

Ronald Lee is a Chinese-Canadian director, producer and writer who has recently returned to filmmaking after travelling throughout Asia and engaging in other (creative) industries. He is interested in meaningful stories of culture and heritage that resonate emotionally with audiences and am also interested in action genre films. He has several scripts/projects that he is shopping for partners and is interested in international co-production, service and commercial clients (both domestically and with his connections with Asia).

Feel free to introduce yourself to him.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

This short film is a commentary about the state of relationships today and the ends to which people try to save their relationships versus challenges keeping couples distant from each other.

Why I made this film: I've been wanting to make a story about the pressures of keeping the flame alive between married couples and external pressures on the couple from external sources—in this case, the couple's parents.

In Asian culture, particularly in Chinese culture, there is a lot of pressure for young men and women to get married, lest they be "leftover"; however, the divorce rate is very high. In my film, "Sliding," we start off with what appears to be a casual bar scene "pickup" where the man meets the woman; however, we find out at the end that they are actually married. This was the couple trying out roleplaying to try to liven up (or perhaps rekindle) their relationship.

We find out that each half of the marriage has their own pressures: the woman's family is pressuring her to have a baby, while the man's aging parents need taking care of and he's their only son.

This type of scenario is very common in Asia and with Asian Canadians but seldom seen on screen.

This is my directorial take on how they would deal with the issue—and I tried to finish the film with the most common outcome—that nothing really happens and the couple stays together but aren't really "in the relationship" any longer.

Beautifully shot by cinematographer Vasyl Utkin, I hope you like it.

Ronald Lee
Director