Every family has its own small mythologies - stories repeated so often they fuse with one’s sense of identity. In Daly City, writer/director Nick Hartanto draws from his own family lore, sharing the story of the time his mother passed off store-bought chicken as a traditional Indonesian dish at their church’s potluck. What begins as a light, almost mischievous anecdote becomes a lens through which Hartanto explores assimilation and the double bind of the model-minority myth.

Told from young Bastian’s point of view, the film opens with his mother rushing to buy Chinese roasted chicken, which she intends to pass off as homemade. When the other church ladies admire the dish, she leans into the exoticism of their assumptions and ends up winning an award. On the car ride to pick up Bastian’s father from work, she explains that letting people see what they want to see can be an advantage - a way to gain acceptance in their new community. However, his mother’s advice is complicated when he witnesses his father being teased at work, smiling through the jokes because not doing so would carry a cost. Where his mother’s charade is a bid for belonging, his father’s is a form of endurance.

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Jett Automo stars as young Bastian in Daly City[/caption]

At the heart of Daly City lies a quiet loss of innocence, as Bastian comes to understand what it truly takes to thrive - and simply survive - in America. Hartanto underscores the duality between the mother's and father’s experiences by mirroring their scenes, using the same music and similar blocking so that their thematic similarities and subtle differences become part of the story. Through Bastian’s eyes, these paired moments expose the blurred line between fitting in and erasing yourself.

With this film, Hartanto aimed to capture “this feeling we had as new immigrants to this country…the feeling of wanting to fit in, wanting to belong, in all its shades of gray”. Rather than trying to offer any moral lessons, the film ends on the quiet intimacy of the family at home, as they finally eat real Indonesian food the authentic way - with their hands. It’s a gentle reminder that belonging can be felt most authentically in private, away from the performances demanded outside.

"I found so much power in excavating those memories and reliving them through my parent’s eyes"

Hartanto’s work often blurs the lines between memory and artifice, and this film - shot entirely in his hometown - is one of his most personal, as it helped him reflect on his family’s immigrant experience with a clarity that only distance provides. "I found so much power in excavating those memories and reliving them through my parent’s eyes," he says. "I’ve gained such a deeper understanding of what they had to do to survive and succeed in a new country and I hope that this film can honor their sacrifices, while also inspiring a new generation of immigrants to reflect on the trappings of being the model minority.”

This desire to honor their sacrifices in Daly City is not shown through grand gestures but in the tenderness of the filmmaking, inviting other immigrants to examine the bargains and unseens costs hidden within the model minority narrative.

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"I think there’s a reason why so many Asian immigrant kids like myself are so food obsessed" - Hartanto discussing the role of Indonesian cuisine in his film.[/caption]

As an Indonesian-American, it’s so special to see a film like Daly City and I was struck not only by its cultural specificity, but by how rarely these stories are given space on screen at all. Hartanto has spoken about the difficulty of casting the film, noting that he can “count on one hand” the number of working Indonesian actors he knows in the U.S. - a scarcity that led his team to search through consulates, community arts groups, and even film festival audiences to find their leads. With that in mind, the film’s exploration of belonging and identity feels all the more urgent.

At a time when conversations about the American Dream and immigration feel especially charged, Daly City pauses to ask a quieter question: what shapes our sense of belonging, and what do we give up on the way to finding it? For me, the impact was not just the recognition if offered - it was a reminder of how seldom stories like this are told, and just how meaningful it is when they finally are.

Daly City is currently For Your Consideration in the Best Live Action Short Film category, following its Academy Award–qualifying win at the 2025 Salute Your Shorts Film Festival, where it received both the Special Jury Award for Excellence in Directing and the Best Cinematography award.