Born in 1994 and raised in Beijing, before graduating with an MFA at the New York Film Academy, Hongyu Li is making a lot of waves in the LGBTQ film-making community and his second fim, HANK, has just received an award nomination at the Palm Springs International Short Fest, alongside nominations at the North Carolina Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, the Golden Angle Award nomination at the Chinese American Film Festival and Best Dramatic Short Film at the Kansas City LGBT Film Festival.
Film and TV Now recently interviewed the director about the film and its’ success on the Festival Circuit.
Film and TV Now: The issue of open relationships and friends with benefits has been explored before. What was the start-off point for Hank and is the main character based on anyone you know?
Hongyu Li: While we ask people to accept the LGBTQ community, the LGBTQ community often only seems to accept the young, the beautiful, the perfect. Recently it seems open marriage has become another standard to measure up against. The question being, “Do you belong to this “progressive” community or not?”
I began to wonder if the question of opening up the relationship was a dilemma for couples who have been together for many years. So I started to research the lives of older gay men, thinking “How do they struggle with stereotypes? And what do older gay couples, who no longer fit these stereotypes do when their long term relationships hit hard times? Hank explores the challenges older gay men face and the often heartbreaking choices they make to keep their marriages alive.
After I finished the log-line, plot, and beat sheet, I found it’s very difficult for me to write the dialogue for the character. Because I’m not a native English speaker, so I always need co-writers to help me. I tried few writing partners but we weren’t in sync. Until I met my co-writer Austin James. Austin brought some funny dialogues and moments in to this sad story, which brought my story to another level.
FTVN: Hank has to deal with a lot of issues throughout the course of the film, be it his support group and the fact he has another person competing for his husband’s attention. Have you had an experience like Hank’s?
HL: My personal life is very vanilla. Actually I never had any long term relationships in my life until last year. But I did a lot of research: face-to-face talking with those elder couples and discussing the challenges in their relationships. They trusted me and shared me so many heartbreaking and authentic personal stories. Hank as a film character, comes from different people’s real life experiences. What I contributed to from my personal life is my observation of our LGBT community.
FTVN: Where did you shoot the film?
HL: I shot my film in the greater Los Angeles areas. I spent a lot of time of finding these locations with visual interests.
The cave in my film is located in the Griffith Park called “Bronson Canyon” and the LGBT meeting happened in Vincent Lugo Park in San Gabriel where has a lot of sea animal slides for kids. The bar scene took place in a cowboy themed bar called Cowboy Palace Saloon in Chatsworth. It’s a very traditional line-dancing bar.
FTVN: Tell us about your cast.
HL: My lead actor is Jason Stuart. When I was in China, I watched a indie film called Tangerine, shot by iPhone. It left me a very deep impression. When I was reading the actor list from casting director, I found that “Jason Stuart” was in this list and starred in Tangerine as the bar owner. Even he’s a comedian actor, but he has a very sincere face that audience can relate to. We had a lot of conversation during the pre-production to make sure the right tone of his performance. Jason has very big personality in the real life, but Hank always compromises.
It took a while for him to get into this character. He’s a very experienced actor. All I need to say is “Jason, remember, Hank won’t do this.” Or “You are Hank! ” Then he would give me what I wanted. Another actor William Nicol who played the role for Hunter. We had more than once deep conversation about the character’s motivation: why does he steal Hank’s clothes and call him “Faggot”.
I shared a lot of my studies and opinions of Hunter. Until the night before shooting, he called me.
The background is full of noises. He sounded very excited and told me that he was walking on Sunset blvd and he suddenly found the motivation of this character. William’s passion of shaping the character left me a deep impression.
FTVN: How has the film been received in the LGBT community?
HL: I’m so glad that my film had opportunity to screen in Palm Springs International Short Film Festival. The film Festival arranged an opportunity for me to talk about my film on CBS Palm Springs local news.
A lot of elder gay couples came to the theatre that day to see my movie and told me that, they cried for Hank.They felt Hank is bullied in this relationship and they believed that Hank should stand for himself.
FTVN: How many drafts of the script did you write?
HL: I did around 13 major drafts and some minor changes after each rehearsals or location scout.
FTVN: Line dancing features at one point in the film, during a bar scene. Is this something you are passionate about?
HL: I believe that every film needs a significant moment. This moment will help characters escape from the conflicts. Let them embrace joys for a while before they face something bad. I wrote “dance” on the script but I didn’t know what type of dance until I scouted the location and found out that it holds line-dancing every night.
I was standing and staring at these happy dancers and imagining the images of my film. I saw Hank dancing! I came back home and changed the script from “dance” to “line dancing”. It was a great decision!
FTVN: Finally, what are your hopes and ambitions for the film, given its’ selection for the Palm Springs International Film Festival?
HL: Palm Springs International ShortFest is the first Oscar Qualifying film festival my film will screen in. I think the most exciting part is, I watched a lot of high-quality short films, connected with professional filmmakers and industry pros.
This film festival’s programmers are really willing to promote new filmmakers. I received an invitation from Palm Springs News Station (CBS – Eye on the Deser) on Tuesday June 18, 2019 to talk about my short film with my lead actor Jason Stuart.
Next day, a lot of audience came to see my film because they saw me on TV! I had a lot of positive feedbacks from audience but also learnt from these talented filmmakers.
