As I approach my late 20s, I find myself constantly swimming in thoughts about my future. The anxiety I feel is amplified by how monumental this period was for my parents: At 26, they left behind their community in Taiwan in pursuit of a better life for themselves and their children in America. I’m now the same age, and I can think of little that could convince me to uproot my life and seek opportunity in a faraway place. Maybe that’s the single greatest privilege of my life — because of my parents’ sacrifice, my biggest challenges lie in navigating my sense of identity, fulfillment and the pursuit of my own dream of being a filmmaker, the sort of dream they never had the luxury of having. In this short documentary, I revisit a more innocent time in my life: middle school in Fremont, California. Flipping through my yearbook made me curious about how old friends who signed “H.A.G.S.” (Have A Good Summer) and doodled Sharpie penises were handling adulthood and the uncertainty about the future — so I decided to call them and find out.

Sean is a filmmaker from Fremont, CA. He is a graduate of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, a Google Creative Lab 5 alum, and a 2020 Sundance Ignite Fellow. Most recently, Sean was an associate producer & directed sequences for the feature film, Summertime, which premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was released in 2021, and his short film, H.A.G.S, was acquired and released by the New York Times. He is currently developing his first feature film, Dìdi (弟弟), which was a recipient of the the 2021 SFFILM Rainin Grant.