J Paul Johnson
With her first full-length feature film, Meeting You, Meeting Me, writer and director Lina Suh depicts a complex, tender, and funny female friendship between two very different women whose chance encounter evolves into a complex dynamic. The film’s title suggests that only in meeting “the other”—for both women, someone unlike them in age, origin, personality, and character—can one truly begin to understand oneself. “Meeting me,” or coming to a more developed understanding of oneself, follows as a consequence of “meeting you.”
In this way Suh’s film, an official selection of this year’s CAAM Fest, charts the all-too-infrequently explored terrain of female friendship, giving its two protagonists ample room to grow over the course of its narrative, while the relationship between them evolves and for a time, even breaks. Simone (Sam Yim) is a Korean American divorce attorney who is very rooted in her immigrant family’s upbringing, and Sav (Annika Foster) is a Californian college dropout searching for herself after being canceled online. Both desperately need a friend and find one in the other, on the surface so unlike them, but willing to reach out and forge an unlikely bond.
Writer and director Lina Suh grew up in Korea, in the American Midwest, and in New York, earning her BFA from NYU’s Tisch School in Dramatic Writing and an MFA from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts in film production. Her credits include the short films So F*cking Happy for You and Good Face—later developed as a TV series with Sony and HBO Max. Suh recently spoke with Film Obsessive’s J Paul Johnson about the development, production, and reception of Meeting You, Meeting Me. The transcript below the video has been edited for space and clarity.
Film Obsessive: Lina Suh is joining me all the way from practically across the world in Korea to talk about her film Meeting You, Meeting Me. Welcome, Lina.
Lina Suh: Thank you for having me. Yes, I am in Korea right now, so it’s a bit early! My first feature film, Meeting You, Meeting Me, is a story about two women from very different backgrounds who meet by chance, and an unlikely friendship grows from their meeting. It is an unlikely friendship that grows from their meeting.
Let me ask you a little bit about how the pre production for this went. Did you have a topic in mind first? Did you have characters in mind first? Did you have a genre in mind first? As a writer, first, where did you begin and what direction did your work take?
Well, so, you know, friendships are very near and dear to me throughout my life. And I have two sisters as well, and a brother who are all very close to me. And I’ve moved around in my life a lot. I was born in the US, I moved to Korea when I was young, I moved back to the US, and even within the US, I moved a couple of times. So, you know, every time I go somewhere, I meet somebody, you know, I meet a lot of new people who kind of shift my perspective and, you know, it challenges me and makes me grow and whatnot. And I think that has always just been something that’s grown in me throughout my life.
And when I was not long out of grad school, I’d made a couple of shorts and I really wanted to make a feature. And there were actresses that I already knew, and I thought, you know, why not just make a feature now with the friends that I’ve come out of grad school with? I feel like it was kind of the right moment where we were all hungry to just make something. And so I essentially fashioned the story of friendship around these two actresses that I already knew [Annika Foster and Sam Yim] and asked them if I could write a feature with them in mind, and thankfully, they said, yes.
And and my main producer, Sharon (Sunjung Park), she is also somebody that I came out of grad school with, and we’ve been wanting to try doing a film together at one point as well because we hadn’t worked together since our first semester of grad school, which we had loved doing and she just become like a really great friend. And so it was piece by piece. These elements came together and I wrote the script and then we said let’s go and it was a continual battle until the very end, but of course, it got made.
It did get made! And let’s talk a little bit about your two primary characters. One of them Sav, Savannah, played by Annika Foster, the other Simone, played by Sam Yim. So you know both of the actors, in personal life? They’re such contrasting characters, it’s almost hard for me to imagine them inhabiting the same circle. And your script plays with that notion. They’re very different kinds of people who happen upon each other at a fairly critical juncture in both of their lives. Can you talk a little bit about their characters?
Yeah, where do I even begin with that? So I personally feel that with every friendship in our lives, we end up taking on a little bit of a different role. And so with a certain friend, you might be the one who is the more talkative one and the one that, you know, ends up drawing the other friend out more and kind of pushing the other friend more. Then in other situations, you might be the one that becomes a little bit more not reserved, but you end up listening to the other friend who is maybe more more of an extrovert than you are. With that exchange, you end up growing and reshaping yourself. And, you know, that can also change in different situations and scenarios.
And so that’s kind of where my mind was a with these characters. Sam (played by Sam Yim)—she is the Korean American one—a lot of people think that, oh, that one must be the one that is the me as the writer, but it actually is not. I think in different situations, in some friendships, I’m more of a Simone. But in other characters, in other relationships and friendships, I think I’m more of a Sav (played by Annika Foster). So that’s kind of how that came about because I do have friends who like Sav are, you know, just very extroverted and just wonderful energy to be around and so much fun. And I just love kind of hanging out and I think they teach me something too in the way that they are and kind of push me to put myself out there more and things like that.
But then I think in other situations, I have friends who are even more reserved or introverted than I am in situations and I try to draw them out as well. And I think there’s such a beauty in, you know, those different types of relationships in your life.
You know, I’m wondering a little bit. Is this a film where you relied a little bit on the actors to bring some personality or characteristics or traits to the roles? Or are they really just, in this case, enacting a script that you’ve composed?
Oh, they were definitely part of the process from quite early on! I think I when I was even originally thinking about writing the script around the two actresses, I kind of had some of their energies in mind in different ways, and they’d never met before; they were brought together for this particular project. And so it was very cool to see their relationship evolve as well. But what happened was I wrote the first draft and sent it to them, and I then invited them over to my apartment. There were some areas where I knew that I wanted to dig in a little bit more. And so then we would take that scene and play it out even more beyond what I had on the page. Then I would go back to my script and think about it and sometimes incorporate some of the things that had come up during that time.
When I was stuck, if it was like with a certain character, I might talk to Annika and say, you know, what do you think that your character would do in times like this? Then we would build out more of her world and her background and things like that. And it would get things rolling in my head, and then I would be able to step away and create another aspect of her life.
Historically, not a great number of films explore this particular topic. I mean, female representation in this particular medium is historically woeful. It’s only recently gotten a little bit better, but that comes in fits and starts. But I’m sure everybody can name, you know, a handful of their favorite kind of female friendship films. Do you have others that you look to, or are you really just kind of working out from your own conception for the film?
There were definitely influences during the process. Some of these, I feel like if I bring them up now, people might be like, oh, that’s a very different tone or whatnot. But there’s several different ones. Actually Thelma and Louise was one at the beginning because that’s obviously a very fun adult women friendship story. Very different tone, but actually the funny thing is neither of my actresses had actually seen Thelma and Louise when I was writing.
[Recoils in mock horror.]
Yeah, I know. That was my reaction, too, so I actually invited them over and I made them watch it together. We actually shot the film in two time periods. And so if you see the film, there is the three years earlier and the three years later portion. And the three years earlier portion, we actually did before the pandemic. In 2019, we were actually hoping to finish the film. It was three years earlier portion that was shot. It was actually just that one day in which a friendship evolves. That was kind of the original conceit of of the film. And originally that day ends with kind of an homage to Thelma and Louise, where they kind of take a selfie together in the way that Thelma and Louise take a selfie.
But when later in 2019, when we were editing, I realized we wanted to reshoot just a couple scenes in the film, and then the pandemic exploded the next year, so all of that was just put aside. And in late 2021, we were ready to go back into production, and I thought 2019 feels a little bit dated. I want to pull it into the present. We were having discussions about this, and then eventually I decided that I would write present-day scenes to sandwich the film. And so toward the end of the film, there is actually a conflict, and we decided then after that conflict, we would just jump three years later again for them to resolve the conflict in present day. I say this because then we ended up throwing away the few scenes that were originally the ending after the conflict.
Was your work interrupted by COVID or did you plan a shoot that you intended to conclude in 2019 with the intent to come back to it at some point in the future, or were you literally interrupted by the pandemic?
We were planning to shoot. There was no shoot that was actually interrupted. It was just more that we were planning. I think even in early 2020, when COVID had appeared in the world, but didn’t seem like a huge threat to in America yet. And at that point, we were like, Okay, we’re looking at maybe in spring, we can potentially reshoot these couple scenes. And then, of course, in March and April, you know, I talked to the actresses as well and said, obviously, we can’t do this right now. So let’s just, you know, hold it for now, and we’ll talk when it seems possible again.
I’m glad you could get back to it! Meeting You, Meeting Me doesn’t look like it’s a small budget film. It looks very lovely, it has excellent cinematography and visual design. But I know that for a first time filmmaker, working with limitations on a budget, that there are challenges. What are some of those that you faced?
Thank you! I’m I’m glad you found it visually beautiful. I’m also very grateful for my cinematographers. We also had two different cinematographers as well, three years earlier and three years later because our wonderful three-years-earlier cinematographer it in, Heyjin Jun, who we also went to grad school with. She started working in Korea during the pandemic a lot, and she’s doing big things, and so she couldn’t come back, sadly. But then, luckily, we were able to find Dawn Suhyun Shim, who was also just such a wonderful cinematographer and was able to take over.
But yeah, the limitations—2019 and 2022 were also a little bit different as well. I think 2019, like I said, it wasn’t long after we had come out of grad school. And so we had a lot of friends who had also come out of grad school in recent years, who were semesters after us. And so we just almost bunked up in an AirBNB situation where we shot most of the film because that one day is mostly at a house. So that was actually something that was really just, you know, bootstraps-type of situation.
And then later in 2022, when we shot, we actually did have to go chase more money because a lot of our original crew had also just moved on and up in the world. And then even now, this is kind of my fault because I wrote the 2022 portion as well, but it was no longer one location. We had multiple locations. We had more characters come in, so we had more actors, and so in a lot of ways, we did actually have to go find more money, and, you know, that’s also a challenge as a first-time filmmaker as well, but luckily, we were able to find people who were able to be very supportive and find the financing that we needed.
You know, it’s still not a huge budget film, but hopefully, like you said, it comes through that, you know, we just had really, really talented people that were also able to elevate it so much.
And now it’s out in the world. Was its debut at was its debut at the CAAM fest last month?
No. It actually was at the Vail Film Festival in Colorado. And then it was also at Pasadena. And so CAAM was actually our third festival.
And were you able to attend those as well? And how was the experience if you did?
Yes, I was able to attend those. I was actually coming back from Korea each time. So I mean, Vail is so beautiful. I’d never, never been. And so that one, you know, it’s a little bit of a smaller festival in a resort town of Colorado. And so, you know, it was a smaller audience, and Sharon and I were able to fly out. And then such warm friends that I have! I have two best friends from college, part of kind of my best friend circle, where I went to New York, and now we’re kind of all dispersed all over the world. And they actually bought their flights out to Vail before me and Sharon did! And so then it became a friendship reunion as well.
And then Pasadena was also lovely because that was our first one in Los Angeles, where a lot of people that we worked with, and a lot of our friends were able to come out as well. So that was really special in that way. And then CAAM was obviously just so wonderful. The whole community was so supportive. And also, Sharon and I not being from the Bay area whatsoever, we were nervous. We were joking that it was just going to be her and my cousin who lives in the Bay area. But all of these people that we didn’t know just kept filling up the theater and we’re like, Where are these people coming from?
That’s great!
Yeah, and so we have a couple special event screenings planned for August, actually, another one in San Francisco, and then another one in Los Angeles. And the details are still being worked out. So please follow the film on Instagram at Meeting You, Meeting Me, and the details shall appear shortly. But then other than that, we’ll hopefully do a couple more screenings this fall, but we’re also looking for distribution right now, and hopefully that will come out about this year, too.
All right. I hope so, too. And Lina, what’s next for you after Meeting You, Meeting Me?
Well, I’m working both in on TV projects and my next film. So I’m currently in the process of writing what I hope will be my next film as well. And obviously, my characters in the story are always at the core, but I’m trying to be a little bit more ambitious with the storytelling this time around as well. And with my TV projects as well, and film, actually. My project seems to continue to take on a Korea-US sort of global feel to it. It’s probably because I grew up in both places throughout my life. And so I’m hoping my next film might actually take place largely in Korea. So we’ll see.
I will wish you luck. I am eager for audiences everywhere to get a chance to see Meeting You, Meeting Me, and I’ll thank you very much, Lina, for contributing to our programming here at Film Obsessive, and just wish you and the film the very best in the future.
Thank you so much!
