Five years after his breakout short film, Sunny, resonated with audiences worldwide, London-based actor and filmmaker Sky Yang has released Dear Google. With his debut having been discovered by Fast & Furious director Justin Lin — who later cast the actor in his upcoming Last Days — Yang’s sophomore film is a deeply personal examination of racial identity through an unusual lens: a teenager’s search history.
The project, created in collaboration with independent short-film publisher Short Stuff, began as an essay about Sunny, further exploring the film’s themes of growing up mixed-race Chinese in school and the stereotyping that came with it. It then evolved into a narrative poem that explores the private, awkward territory of an insecure fifteen-year-old’s most intimate online queries.
Vulnerable though the project may be, Yang affirms that it is the right time to lay his experiences bare. “With the rising anti-immigrant sentiment entering all of our lives, maybe now isn’t the time to shout back,” he tells HUNGER. “Maybe it might be the time to get intimate. To get ugly. And honest. And let people in.”
Where Sunny is a story about a boy who creates an alter-ego, in the form of a giant yellow papier maché mask, to cope with his racist experiences, its sequel marks a shift from external to internal examination. Dear Google, then, explores the private moments of confusion and shame that come with growing up feeling like you don’t belong.
The film offers a counter-narrative to current anti-immigrant discourse — not through argument, but through the raw, unguarded voice of someone who has lived the experience of being made to feel ‘other’ in their own home. The project includes both the three-minute short film and an extended eighteen-minute audiobook version, both available to watch on Short Stuff from 1 October.
- WriterHUNGER writers
- Banner Image Credit'Dear Google' film still
