“You’re watching the results of five thousand years of sexual repression,” remarked Ang Lee famously in The Wedding Banquet.

I wear my heart on my sleeves for this film. As a Chinese LGBT individual, I have been asked by elders and relatives countless times if I am getting a girlfriend or when I will get married. For politeness, all I could reply is to smile with them. But deep down, my heart breaks: I hope so much that I can share with them the pains and joys of being someone they will probably never understand, but in the end I could only swallow it and keep who I am a secret.

With this broken heart comes the idea for “Graduation.” The plot was inspired by my own graduation at Duke University in 2019.

“Graduation” is a romantic comedy about lies and secrets – and how they crumble when we are away from the pretensions of society and allowed to be true to ourselves. It is a film about family, about the gaps between generations that could probably never really understand each other – but somehow find themselves in similar dilemmas as their forbidden love chafes against the confines of society.

Most importantly, it is a story told from an Asian-LGBT perspective but demands a universal recognition. Love happens to any human being regardless of age, sex, or sexual orientation — and one will set himself/ herself free by giving others the freedom to pursue their own love.

Lastly, I envision the film as a synthesis of Call Me By Your Name and Eat Drink Man Woman – to capture the bittersweet nature of love, farewell, reunion, and growing up as a queer person in the Chinese diaspora culture. I hope that this film will help the parents of LGBT youths – including my own – understand their children and themselves better. We all want to love or be loved, and it is the time that we recognize each other as human beings.