Author's Biography:
Mira Peng is a writer and filmmaker from Hunan, China. She began her filmmaking journey in Beijing and is now based in Los Angeles. Her short films have screened at festivals including NewFest, Palm Springs International Film Festival, Cleveland International Film Festival, Sydney Film Festival, Asian American International Film Festival, and Queer East, among others. A graduate of New York University’s MFA program in Filmmaking, Peng was selected for the Disney Launchpad, where she wrote and directed The Little Prince(ss), released on Disney+. She is also an Almanack Screenwriters Fellow, a Tin House Fiction Workshop Fellow, and a Lambda Literary Fellow.
Script Synopsis:
In 1990s rural southern China, Yue is a dreamy trans girl born into a boy’s body. When her mother Lan was pregnant, she craved only lychees. “You only wanted lychees when you were in my belly. That’s why you’re so soft, so sweet,” she tells Yue. Yet Lan discourages Yue from acting “girly,” because Yue has an older sister and her family violated the one-child policy to have another child, hoping for a son. Soon, Yue’s difference becomes a quiet source of shame within the family. When Yue is ten, the household begins to unravel. Her father Jian’s gambling addiction deepens, and the tension between her parents erupts into violence. After one brutal fight, Lan flees, leaving Yue behind with her older sister, their stubborn grandmother, and their increasingly absent father for the summer. Lonely and imaginative, Yue dreams of a mysterious spaceship and a strange device offering glimpses of another future. At the same time, she develops a tender attachment to her best friend Tian Yun’s father, the gentle Mr. Tian. One night, when Yue stays at Tian Yun’s house, the boundary between dream and reality blurs, revealing a fragile vision of who she might become.
Director's STATEMENT:
Lychee Girl is a memory film about my childhood. I grew up in a small town in 90s China, where silence and secrecy shaped daily life. I dreamed of alien spaceships before I knew what they were. I was born in a “wrong” body, always feeling like a girl when my parents wanted a son. Family violence and rejection forced me to grow up fast. All of this shapes the long, difficult childhood depicted in Lychee Girl. I’ve made a few films about my childhood, but only through my own becoming have I begun to see the threads clearly—like the photo of me at three in my sister’s dress that vanished from our home, or the strange hope I felt when I heard the rumor of a boy struck by lightning becoming a girl. These moments now feel like faraway lighthouses beaming hope. Reality can be distorted by our parents’ fears. Writing this story is my attempt to restore that life honestly. If, within this strange and winding tale, I can offer a greeting of hope to trans children struggling in the dark, telling them the future is worth waiting for, that too is a small, precious act of healing.
Manager:
Kendrick Tan, kendrick@litentertainmentgroup.com