Filmmaker Statement

The film is inspired by the Michigan lake suburbia sleepovers of my youth and explores early female adolescence and the bodily shame and anxieties that come with it. For me, sleepovers created an irreproducible pressure-cooker environment that felt boundary-pushing and formative. I have never seen this fixture of the American coming- of-age experience shown on screen in a non-cartoonish way, and I wanted to capture this raucous and intimate setting with fly on the wall realism, vulnerability and care. The film is a personal one. I made this film with my two younger sisters Chase Sui Wonders and Grace Sui, who star as the film’s leads.