Why ‘Dìdi’ Director Sean Wang Has Skateboarding Videos to Thank for His Filmmaking Career | Video

Director Sean Wang is an Oscar nominee as of Tuesday, albeit for his short film “Nai Nai & Wai Po,” (“Grandma and Grandma”). But with that and the premiere of his feature film debut, “Dìdi,” at the Sundance Film Festival, it’s important to remember that Wang almost didn’t become a filmmaker at all.

“When I think about cultural shame and being an Asian American boy during that time [the 2000s], we didn’t have the influences we have in culture today,” Wang said during an interview with TheWrap editor-in-chief Sharon Waxman at TheWrap’s Sundance Portrait and Interview Studio presented by NFP. “We had seen movies about what it feels like to be the one Asian American in a sea of white people.”