When Emma moves in with her estranged, gay son, the pair must learn to reconnect through food where words fail, and face the foreclosure of the family’s Chinese restaurant and a stubborn fear of intimacy.

Director Biography - David Au

David Au was born and raised in Hong Kong. At 18, he decided to move to Madison, Wisconsin, where he spent most of the next 4 years shivering. He graduated with Journalism and Theatre/Drama from University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 2002, he quit his advertising job in Chicago to move to Los Angeles to study film. There, he wrote and directed his first short film FRESH LIKE STRAWBERRIES (Premiered at the 2004 San

Francisco Asian American Film Festival), which later turned into his feature film debut EAT WITH ME.

David had also edited feature narrative films THE AMERICAN DREAM (Premiered at 2011 Cinequest Film Festival), AUGUST (Premiered at 2011 Seattle International Film Festival) and documentary feature BODYSEX WITH BETTY DODSON.

Director Statement

I’ve always wanted to make a dramedy about an Asian American family that uses food as a tool to communicate, the real Asian way. EAT WITH ME is based on a short film I made in 2003 called “Fresh Like Strawberries,” and it ultimately turned into this feature film. It was a story that I obviously had to tell because it stayed with me from its inception as the short film.

One day, my mom called me and told me that my dad cut off his wedding ring one night and decided not to wear it again because it was giving him a headache. She was laughing when she was retelling the story, and thought it was funny. We both knew my dad’s quirkiness. My parents are still very much happily married, but at the time I thought to myself, what if my mom didn’t take it so well? What if she got mad and decided to get herself a new life? What would happen then? That became the premise of EAT WITH ME.

The script has taken roughly 10 years to finish. I took the same characters and expanded their storylines into this full-length feature. Emma, the protagonist, is definitely someone I highly admire. Even though she has her demons to battle. At the end of the day, she has just enough courage to make a change for herself, despite how hard it is. Elliot, Emma’s son, is dealing with his own set of problems, but he’s very similar to his mother in certain ways. He constantly feels stuck in his life, not having much luck with relationships and his career. So when the mother and son finally come together, they are able to help each other to overcome their fears and life’s challenges.

I wanted the characters to be real people rather than perfect Hollywood types. I wanted to show the laugh lines, the awkwardness and the fumbles that real people make. The rest of the world generally doesn’t live soap opera dramas with evil twin husbands or perfectly coiffed hair. I wanted to tell a very real tale that was grounded in “ordinary” life because this is a real people story.

In the original short film, I cast SHARON OMI, TEDDY CHEN CULVER and KEN NARASAKI through open auditions. They were simply amazing, so I had to cast them. After that production, we all developed great friendships that flourished throughout the years. When EAT WITH ME came to life, I was lucky to have all of them come back for the same roles.

With the rest of the casting, our casting directors PATRICK BACA and SHANA LANDSBURG found us the beautiful cast including NICOLE SULLIVAN, AIDAN BRISTOW, SCOTT KENIJI TAKEDA and BURT GRINSTEAD.

With casting the iconic George Takei, our producer, Joyce, literally sat three seats away from him and his husband, Brad Takei, at the opening of a play at East West Players in Los Angeles. She took the bold step during intermission to approach them. They started talking, and she mentioned EAT WITH ME to them. After a lot of following up and even an initial “no,” the rest is history. As far as I was concerned, GEORGE TAKEI IS IN OUR FILM!

The hardest part of the shoot was the time constraints. We shot about 100 pages in 15 days with 10 different locations. We were constantly competing with time and energy. We had an amazing team of cast and crew who all worked so hard during those days and stuck with us. We finished our last day at 3am in a parking lot outside of a grocery store with some cheap champagne. To be able to share that with such a talented group of people, that was definitely our triumph.

One of the biggest challenges during the production was shooting the touching Emma and Elliot reconciliation scene—but not because of the emotionality of the scene. There was a raging bachelorette party happening next door with strippers and we had to shoot in between the strippers’ sets. The ladies next door even propositioned our First AD to go over and strip for them.

As for the studio apartment that we shot in, it was over 100 degrees on that day that we shot the bedroom scenes with Elliot, Ian and Emma. Air conditioning in the apartment was non-existent and we couldn’t run the fans while the camera was rolling, so we had to keep wiping down Teddy and Aidan to keep them from staining the sheets with their sweat.

Because EAT WITH ME is a foodie film, we constantly had delicious food on set as props, like dumplings, tacos, chocolate tarts, and all kinds of Chinese food. That was a big tease to our crew as everyone had to fight the urge not eat it before we finished shooting. As soon as we called “CUT” on the last take of each scene, the entire cast and crew made a beeline for the food. It was the funniest thing to watch. I’m pretty sure our producers wrapped over 300 dumplings by hand just for the shoot. I think it will be another 10 years before we make another dumpling.

The taco truck scene was probably one of cast and crew’s favorites during production because not only were they in the scene but everyone got all-you-can-eat-and-then-some hot tacos for lunch that day. The funny thing about that scene is that Sharon actually put the hottest hot sauce on her taco for the first take. She then took that bite but had to keep a straight face as her mouth was exploding in fire. It’s the shot that actually made the final cut of the film. She immediately downed a cup of water upon “CUT” and had to actually stop and let her mouth recover before we could roll the cameras again. We had her put sauce on one taco but actually eat the other “stunt taco” for subsequent shots.

Besides being hungry, I hope the audience will come out of the theater feeling energized about their own lives or inspired to make a change for the better. There are different ways that I believe people will relate the film, either as a mother, as an adult child, or as a person seeking their path in life. When they walk out of the theater, I want them to feel a sense of hope and recognition—that someone else gets where they’re at and where they’re going to.

EAT WITH ME is very personal to me because this story and these characters are something I’ve had been brewing in my head for over 10 years. These people (characters) innately became my family and I love every one of them with great passion. Joyce (my producer) and I were fortunate enough to pull together all the funding in order to bring this film to production, with a lot of support from our families and friends. In some ways, it is a tribute to my mother. I am very proud of what we made and we are glad we get to share this finished film with everyone now.