Filmmaker Georgia Lee dropped out of Harvard Business School to make movies. That must rank right up there with biting your fingernails and dating a felon as one of the all time best ways to torture your mother. Fear not Mrs. Lee, Georgia seems like she's doing okay. A short film she directed while at NYU film school was spotted by Martin Scorsese who took her under his wing during the shooting of Gangs of New York. Learning how to make movies at Scorsese's elbow--not bad for a B-school dropout.

Lee's first feature film, Red Doors played on Saturday and after seeing Grain in the Ear boy were we ready for something completely different. Red Doors is the director's vaguely autobiographical story of a modern Chinese-American family in crisis—three daughters and their father are all tangling with their personal demons. The eldest daughter, played by Jaqueline Kim is the proto-typical type-A achiever. Her impending marriage to an equally resume-perfect ivy-leaguer is thrown into question when she encounters her ex-boyfriend, a scruffy musician type who plunks out mellow Jack Johnson-esque tunes on his acoustic guitar. Her father's retirement exacerbates what appears to be some sort of existential crisis/depressive episode, meanwhile the middle sister is either having a sexual epiphany or finally acting on one (we weren't quite sure which) and the youngest sister (played by the filmmaker's own youngest sister) is engaged in an escalating prank-war with the object of her desire.

SFist MiHi Ahn, contributing

Image from Red Doors

During the Q and A after the movie an audience member raised the question of why no Asian men were cast as love interests for the daughters—a reoccurring topic of conversation during this film festival (see Americanese). Filmmaker Lee said she wrote two of the male parts with Asian actors in mind but both dropped out due to scheduling conflicts. The casting was completely color-blind but the result was the Asian woman, white guy mix again. Red Doors won an award at the Tribeca Film Festival and a subsequent theatrical distribution deal so look for it at a theatre near you later this year. Or you can catch the second showing during the SFAAIFF this Saturday in San Jose.

On a side note--after the Tribeca Film Festival, a one-hour television pilot of Red Doors was ordered. This makes us both hopeful and scared. More Asians on TV would be refreshing but after the "All American Girl" fiasco we're also afraid. Very, very afraid.