Sophie

SOPHIE is a family drama centered on a young girl named Sophie and the new relationship she has with her grandmother, Shirley. The film is about acceptance and the learning to adapt to a new place and a new home. At the start of the film, Sophie is abandoned by her mother, Mary and left at Shirley’s house in Kowloon, Hong Kong.
My own mother, Lily grew up in Kowloon, Hong Kong. She was born in Shanghai and raised in Hong Kong. I wanted to do a story that had some sort of connection to my mother’s time in Hong Kong. The film and the story went through many ideas and concepts over a period of 8 months of writing. However, I wanted to tackle a social issue that I think is prevalent in many parts of Asia, but particularly in Hong Kong and Mainland China. Many children in these areas end up being raised by their grandparents for a few different reasons – mainly because both parents are working and spend their days in the offices. As a result, many children in Asia end up forming an even stronger connection to their grandparents. I wanted to tackle this in SOPHIE.
Actresses Charlotte Cheung and Alannah Ong were great assets and gave me incredible performances throughout the 7 days that we shot the film. Both worked well with one another in creating the grandmother-granddaughter dynamic. Cinematographer Thomas Wood and I worked closely in establishing the style and look of the film. We were both inspired by different films from the region in creating the feeling in the imagery.
The film is a character study on a young girl in a large city who misses her mother, and has a simple want of just wanting to get her permission form signed to go to the zoo. There is an essence, a feeling of the mother throughout the film because this is a moment in Sophie’s life that she will never forget – these are the first moments of the relationship between her and her grandmother, Shirley.