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In HAGS (Have a Good Summer), the US filmmaker Sean Wang casts his newest project from the pages of his middle-school yearbook. Calling up five long-lost friends that he hasn’t spoken to in years, Wang zeroes in on the two most willing to chat – Way Chen, who’s working at a restaurant while trying to make it as a dancer, and Fahad Manzur, who worries he just might have peaked in eighth grade – for an exploration of middle school, young adulthood and the wide chasm in between. Overflowing with sound and sight gags, Wang brings an apt sense of carefree humour to the work. But beyond its novel concept and nostalgic charms, the film also offers touching reflections on identity, the second-generation American experience and how expectations of ‘adulthood’ evolve even after you reach it.
Director: Sean Wang
Animator: Deepti Menon
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Personality
A ‘little thief’ turned career criminal recounts a life on the wrong side of the law
5 minutes
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Consciousness and altered states
‘I want me back’ – after a head injury, Nick struggles with his altered reality
7 minutes
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War and peace
Two Ukrainian boys’ summer unfolds just miles from the frontlines
22 minutes
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Virtues and vices
Why Bennie tried to disappear, and what happened when he was found decades later
16 minutes
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Technology and the self
The commodified childhood – scenes from two sisters’ lives in the creator economy
14 minutes
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Sports and games
Havana’s streets become racetracks in this exhilarating portrait of children at play
5 minutes
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Home
How an artist transformed a dilapidated hunting lodge into a house made of dreams
8 minutes
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Animals and humans
The wild tale of a young animal keeper, an angry tiger and a torn circle net
10 minutes
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Childhood and adolescence
The police camp where tween girls enter a sisterhood of law and order
28 minutes