This millennial directed his 94- and 83-year-old grandmothers for a movie—it's now nominated for an Oscar

Sean Wang has always believed his grandmothers were movie stars — and now they have an Oscar nomination to prove it.

Wang, 29, is a Los Angeles-based filmmaker whose film "Nai Nai & Wai Po" (which translates to "grandma and grandma" in Mandarin Chinese) is up for Best Documentary Short Film for the 96th Academy Awards. It's now streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.

The film, which Wang calls a "personal love letter" to his grandmothers, follows Nai Nai (Yi Yan Fuei) and Wai Po (Chang Li Hua), who are "late-stage soulmates" in their 80s and 90s and live together with Wang's parents in Fremont, Calif.

The movie was filmed in 2021 when Wang returned home from New York City during the pandemic. It was the longest time he'd gotten to spend with his grandmothers since leaving home and realized "they're the most pure form of joy in my life," even as they were aging and as anti-Asian hate incidents were being reported across the U.S.

Wang picked up the camera to create a time capsule for his family and to show his future children and grandchildren, he says. The film premiered at SXSW in 2023 and won the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award.

Yi and Chang , who were 94 and 83 at the time of filming, spend their days dancing, stretching, reading the newspaper and reminiscing about old friends and memories.

"We were really excited about making a movie about them, which explores end of life, but have it be infused with this vibrant youthfulness that comes from them," Wang says. "And what we learned from that is: Growing old doesn't necessarily mean fading away. There's just as much to look forward to in old age and there's just as much youthfulness and fun and vibrancy in old age as there is in our lives."

One line from his Nai Nai was particularly resonant: "The days we spend feeling joy and the days we spend feeling pain are the same days spent. So I'm going to choose joy."

"It's a simple line," Wang says, "but it's a decision some days to allow yourself to feel joy."

Wang says his grandmothers have always been supportive of his filmmaking and jokes that "they're the reason I have a career."

The documentary wasn't their first time on camera: Wang says they all made a minute-long skit in 2018 as a Christmas card of sorts. It was "really stupid and silly and chaotic, but it was so fun to make with them," Wang says. "They were on board for sure."

For her part, Chang hopes the movie inspires parents to encourage their kids to pursue the paths they want to follow, rather than projecting their own goals and interests onto their children.

Wang takes his Wai Po's life and career advice to heart: "If you plant the seeds to support your loved ones [as they] try to find the things that they love to do, that's how you have a fulfilling life."

Even with his family onboard, Wang says it can be difficult to reconcile making something personally meaningful versus what you think will help you get ahead in your career.

He recalls previously working for an ad agency where his goal was to make something that landed on TV, rather than something he could be personally proud of.

Wang thought, "If I get a commercial on TV, all of a sudden, it'll legitimize everything," he says. "I didn't care if the thing was good or not, I just wanted it to be on TV. And that was a very quick road to unhappiness, because I was making a bunch of things that I didn't really believe in."

In the end, Wang wasn't happy with the final product, and neither were his bosses.

"The times where I've tried to make something for everybody is when it totally falls flat, and it becomes for nobody," he says.

Now, he'd rather make stories for himself and his friends. Wang says he's learned he doesn't need the most expensive equipment, A-list stars or gripping headlines to make something that will resonate.

Splashy projects may "get the most attention, but they're not always the ones that are most meaningful," he says. "The most meaningful [stories] are the ones that really come from the people and the relationships in your life that you have the most access to, and that have the most heart. Heart doesn't cost anything."

That mentality has already led to bigger successes. Wang's debut feature, a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age film called "Didi," premiered at Sundance Film Festival in January, where it won the U.S. dramatic audience award, and has sold to Focus Features.

For now, Wang and his grandmothers are excited to attend the Academy Awards in March. They're already working with a stylist to nail their red carpet looks.

"We're really doing it up for them," Wang says. "They're really excited. If I feel like I'm having an out-of-body, fish-out-of-water experience, I think it'll be truly insane for them."

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