Content warning: This article contains mentions of sexual harassment and assault.

The School of Cinematic Arts is a place of creative exploration and avant-garde artistic thought. As a melting pot in the nation’s leading movie-making city, this crucial branch of the University highlights what’s new and exciting about the filmmakers of tomorrow. 

Upcoming student short film “Margo” is shaping up to shift the paradigm of SCA on two different fronts. Not only is it a project with a predominantly APIDA cast and crew, but the film also probes into a seldom-explored topic: mother-daughter relationships in immigrant households. 

Daily headlines, sent straight to your inbox.

Subscribe to our newsletter to keep up with the latest at and around USC.

The film tells the story of titular character Margo and her desire to help her mother Grace pay for the bills. Along the way, she has to deal not only with her manipulative coworker Matt, but also the simultaneous distance between her and her mother and her desire to feel she has earned what her mother provides.

Director, writer and producer Cecilia Mou, a sophomore majoring in film and television production, said her own life informed the script.

“I saw myself a lot in [the titular] character, and I really resonated with her issues … It was basically a big conflict between me and my mom,” Mou said. “‘Oh my god, so angsty,’ but that’s essentially where [the idea] stemmed from.”

Just as the seed for the film’s concept came from deep within Mou’s own life story, the script that would generate the production has been with her for a long time. Mou wrote “Margo” when she was in high school, and she never imagined she would produce it until  a student producer took a particular interest in “Margo” and signed on to help in its current fundraising Kickstarter campaign and pre-production phase. 

Liya Yang, a senior majoring in film and television production, discussed her assessment of the script and what made her want to help produce it.

“From the get-go, there was a lot of heart poured into the script,” Yang said. “As a producer, I’m always looking for stories that have that kind of passion and that poignant exploration of these different perspectives.”

Quickly, both filmmakers began to further explore the complicated, nuanced subject matter that “Margo” covers. Yang said she resonated with the story of a mother and daughter’s complicated relationship, but there were other aspects of the story that had to be considered as well.

“How do we strike that balance between the cultural elements of it while also not detracting away from the main purpose of the story?” Yang said. “That was the emotional complexity that we were trying to explore while also creating something that’s more character-driven.”

These elements are not always at the forefront in “Margo,” but they help bolster the overall message being portrayed by the filmmakers. Mou spoke on how awareness around sexual assault and harassment has a life within “Margo” and why it is one of many different sides to this profound story.

“There is an element [of] sexual assault awareness and sexual harassment awareness, and although the film has not placed that at its forefront, I still think it’s a story about a relationship at its very core,” Mou said. “The film itself, in the way that the script is written, is meant to listen and observe with empathy and kindness as opposed to [making] some sort of heroic statement. It’s just a film meant to comfort, understand and just have empathy for our audiences.”

While the film is based on and created by APIDA individuals, the filmmakers emphasize that it is a story that any and every family can resonate with as an exploration of generational disparities and motherhood. Adding a different perspective to the core tenets of the film, producer Sea Gira, a sophomore majoring in film and television production, gave insight into what she believes lies at the heart of “Margo.”

“To me, I think [the film] is really about navigating culture in territories that aren’t necessarily explored,” Gira said. “In mother-daughter relationships, it’s really important to understand that it’s the first time a daughter is a daughter, and it’s always the first time that a mother is a mother, and with that [comes] challenges of navigating … what values do we hold to ourselves and what values we are willing to work around for others.”

Even though it is a story with universal appeal and real, human heart, “Margo” is also a study into the reality of being Asian American. This has not been lost on the filmmakers, and allowed Gira to reflect on the importance of representation of her community in film and at the University at large.

“It’s important to emphasize the difference between diversity and inclusion … We can say we have a fair amount of female filmmakers and international and POC filmmakers in our [SCA] cohort,” Gira said. “But when we think about inclusivity, especially within an educational setting, do we have individuals in the faculty that can relate to us on an identity-based level? I think for me, personally, I’m still seeking that.”