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Logline

Eva rebels against her uptight Asian American parents by getting engaged to a White, hippie boy, but when she accidentally shoots him dead during a family hunting trip, mom, dad and daughter have to sort through their own dysfunctional dynamics to figure out who’s taking the blame or getting rid of the body.

Synopsis

Unconditional is a dark comedy about an Asian-American family on a hunting trip gone wrong. When Eva, the daughter, accidentally shoots her White fiancé dead, her parents insist on getting rid of the body to protect Eva. As the family collides with each other on what’s the right thing to do, tensions and long-buried secrets about the family’s journey to America begin to surface. Faced with this expanded understanding of their collective pasts and sacrifices, Eva eventually must make a hard decision to save her family.

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Meet the Filmmakers

Zao Wang – Writer/Director
Zao Wang was born in Beijing, China, into a family of filmmakers. At 14 his family emigrated to Mississippi, where he first learned English by watching a lot of American TV. After graduating college with degrees in physics and philosophy, Zao’s original passion for visual storytelling landed him at NYU-Tisch, where he received an MFA in Film Directing.

His short and feature films are mainly in the psychological horror/thriller/sci-fi genres. Informed by his own immigrant experience, these genre films are elevated with his unique multicultural perspective, and often with a dash of dark humor. His films have won numerous awards at Tribeca, Fantasporto, Fantasia, Yubari, Busan, Palm Springs, among others. His short films have been optioned by NBCUniversal and Tomorrow Studios for TV development.

Zao was chosen by J.J. Abrams as his only Directing Fellow at Bad Robot. He is a part of the Sony Diverse Directors and NBCUniversal Emerging Directors Programs, as well as a Directing Fellow at HBO Access.

Tom Toro – Co-Writer
A New Yorker cartoonist and author/illustrator, Tom’s drawings have appeared in publications around the world including The Paris Review, the New York Times and Playboy. Tom has been awarded writing residencies at the Orchard Project Episodic Lab and the Berkeley Rep Ground Floor and his stories have been shortlisted for the Disquiet International Literary Prize. Tom graduated cum laude from Yale, where he received the Betts Prize for his literary essays and served as cartoon editor for the Yale Herald. Tom attended NYU Graduate Film School, where he made award-winning films that have premiered at Sundance, Tribeca, and Cannes. He has been profiled by NPR, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Huffington Post.

Carmiel Banasky – Co-Writer
Carmiel is an award-winning short-story writer, novelist, and TV writer, staffing on the hit Amazon series, Undone, for which she wrote an episode in Season 2. She is a Film Independent Fellow and the author of the critically-acclaimed novel The Suicide of Claire Bishop. She earned her MFA from Hunter College, where she was a professor of creative writing. She is currently creating a sci-fi podcast series with Wondery, and adapting a feminist fantasy novel for TV. She is the head writer and consultant for The Climate Storytelling Playbook, a foundational guide for screenwriters in the age of climate change.

Joyce Liu-Countryman – Producer
Joyce Liu-Countryman is a Chinese American producer of TV & Film and born and raised San Franciscan.

Her first feature, Eat With Me, premiered at Film Independent’s Los Angeles Film Festival and was carried by Netflix and Hulu between 2015 and 2019, now streaming on Amazon Prime. She’s a 2022 Women in Film Mentee and most recently produced the Film Independent/Project Involve short, No Vows, No Cows. Her AAPI short, Becoming Eddie, was picked up by Sony Pictures Television and is in development as an adult animation comedy series, where she will co-executive produce alongside Ken Jeong.

She has served on the Diversity & Inclusion and Film Marketing teams at Sony Pictures Entertainment and managed testing of such titles as Jumanji: The Next Level, Little Women, and Bad Boys For Life. Joyce earned her MFA in producing from the American Film Institute while supported by the Entertainment Partners scholarship.

Louise Barretto – Producer
Before moving to Los Angeles, Louise Barretto was a producer for MTV Philippines’ weekly show, Timeout. She recently co-produced Film Independent/Project Involve’s short, No Vows, No Cows. She has produced music videos for Iggy Azalea, Aidan Bissett, and Elle E.D. Working across mediums, she’s produced magazine covers for Harper’s Bazaar, Glamour, and The Wrap and has worked with such talent as Christina Aguilera, Saweetie, Kim Petras, and Squid Game’s HoYeon Jung.

Her credits include a social media campaign for Stoli Vodka and Beachwaver. She has produced portrait studios at events including the Film Independent Spirit Awards and San Diego Comic Con.

Margaret Cho – Executive Producer/ “June”
Margaret Cho is a true Renaissance woman. She has appeared in over 100 films and TV shows, such as Face/Off, Drop Dead Diva, Psycho, 30 Rock, The Flight Attendant, and most recently, Fire Island. Aside from a prolific career on screen, she has executive produced a selective number of movies, TV shows, and short films.

As activist, advocate, entrepreneur, and artist, she has championed for anti-racism, anti-bullying & gay rights campaigns, receiving multiple awards from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), National Organization for Women (NOW).

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Contact

For inquiries, please contact fiscalsponsorship@filmindependent.org.