Bite

A film by Michelle Krusiec

BITE was made in the 2022 AFI Directing Workshop for Women

STORY

SHINY, a Taiwanese emigre, comes from a history of distrust and abandonment. Her husband has been hiding his financial decisions in an effort to protect her from the realities of his ill-timed retirement. She turns to her teenage daughter for help, but finds no safety. When her husband reveals the true extent of their financial problems, Shiny becomes unwound. In an attempt to make herself visible to the world, she lashes out at the one person she loves the most, her daughter.

Director Michelle Krusiec works with Kristen Hung and Mike Sears. Cristina Dunlap films.

Director Statement

When I wrote MADE IN TAIWAN in 2001, my perspective was that of a young woman looking up to my mother. Now many moons later, I revisit this material, but from the perspective of the mother.

As someone who’s watched the AAPI film community grow before my very eyes, I believe my generation of writers are re-examining our relationship to family much more complexly than Hollywood mainstream stories have afforded us in the past. We’re finally beginning to take risks. Some of my community want to see us leave our Asianness out of the picture, but I, personally, feel like I’m just beginning to take the blindfold off.

As someone who grew up in fear and in awe of my mother, I wanted to bring her point of view to life. I don’t believe her story ever gets told in America. And I believe, she desperately wanted to be seen for everything she is and was at that time in her life. She loved me so much and the idea of letting me go was a trigger, but underneath there was a feeling of wanting permanence in this country.

My community has been under racial attacks since we began migrating here over 200 years ago and whether we’re being pushed onto subway tracks or made the butt of a “harmless” slur said in passing, these wounds fester. The feeling of displacement becomes a form of passed on generational trauma.

This mother’s trauma erupts as rage that many of us can recognize when shown, yet we don’t talk about it. These suppressed feelings permeate our lives and catch us when we least expect it. I wanted to make a film that looks at the complexities of personal trauma, the nuances of domestic violence, and how class, gender, race and cultural alienation clash in this family, even in the presence of love.

It’s my hope that by depicting this rage, we can see it fully and begin from there.

—Michelle Krusiec, Writer/Director