Narrative Features
Smoking Tigers
Set in early 2000s Los Angeles, Smoking Tigers is a portrait of lonely, 16-year-old Korean American Hayoung, who is taken under the wings of three wealthy students she meets at an elite academic bootcamp. As she falls deeper into their world, Hayoung works harder to hide her problematic family and lower-income background from her new friends as she discovers the bittersweet pains of adulthood that will forever shape her life.
Presented in English and Korean with English subtitles.
Georgia premiere
Preceded by the professional short PANDA. A Q&A with director and writer So Young Shelly Yo and producer Guo Guo immediately follows the screening.
DIRECTOR
So Young Shelly Yo
PRODUCER
Guo Guo
WRITER
So Young Shelly Yo
CAST
Ji-young Yoo
Jun-ho Jeong
Abin Andrews
Erin Choi
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
So Young Shelly Yo is an award-winning filmmaker whose work has been supported by HBO, CAAM, SFFILM, the Sloan Foundation, and others. Her feature film debut, Smoking Tigers, won Best Screenplay, Best Performance, and a special mention for the Nora Ephron Prize at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival. Yo also wrote and directed the short films Soft Sounds of Peeling Fruit and Moonwalk with Me.