CHICKS is a mashup and subversion of the stereotypical bubble-gum pink world of the teenage girl and a coming-of-age catharsis like no other. 

 

Growing up I was very shy and would never be caught dead wearing the color pink, ashamed to like anything remotely feminine for fear of being judged. Now pink is half my wardrobe. Teen girls, especially “girly girls” in the media are often pigeonholed, stereotyped, pitted against each other. They’re vapid, promiscuous, evil queen bees -- you can practically guess what’s gonna happen when an outsider girl goes over to the house of the intimidatingly confident popular girls. If it’s a chick-flick: makeover time! If it’s a horror: bloody murder. Why can't a female-identifying character unapologetically enjoy glittery nail polish and be taken as seriously as the ones who don’t?

 

Chicks is a deconstruction of how female friendships are portrayed. We borrow the aesthetic and genre conventions from chick-flicks and horrors to set up a world that you think you know how it’s going to end, flipping the script on you until the very end. It was also important to me to have a main character that was from a first-generation immigrant family. Despite the unraveling absurdity of CHICKS, I wanted to tell a subversive and universal coming-out-of-your-shell story about someone finding unexpected community and feeling empowered to blossom into their own as a result of that... it just happens to also be a bloody dinosaur chicken worshipping cult…but y'know, #justgirlythings!!

 

I’m so humbled and inspired by the talent, passion, and dedication of every single person that helped make this weird little movie possible. They’re a cast and crew made up of mostly young femme and BIPOC filmmakers that I’m honored to have crossed paths with.

P.S. The concept of the chicken is so tragically absurd to me. They are dependent farm animals tapped almost exclusively for their goods (their breasts, legs, and thighs...) even though they are the closest living descendants to the most fearsome and glorious apex predators of all time (dinosaurs). Chickens and women uniting to defy stereotypes and uplift each other? I'd believe it!