MOVIE IN THE MAKING
- Heart Of Hollywood Team
- Dec 15, 2022
- 3 min read
Margaret Bihong Sha’s Touching New Film Focuses on a Tragedy in Parkland, Florida
See Me Once More, My Dear Kid is a feature-length film currently in post-production. The film is set against the backdrop of the high school mass shooting of February 14, 2018 in Parkland, Florida, resulting in 17 deaths and 14 people injured. Among the victims was Peter Wang, a 16-year-old Chinese American student who was shot and killed while helping his classmates escape.
Filmmaker Margaret Bihong Sha was writing at a café in West Hollywood when she read the news of the school shooting. Heartbroken over the young lives lost to the tragedy and the families who suffered unimaginable losses, Margaret vowed to tell this story through film. She put aside all other projects and began screenwriting for the movie with Elizabeth Wang.
During the process of bringing the film to life, Margaret and her key cast members visited Peter Wang’s parents and relatives in Parkland and spoke with local residents. Being a documentarist, TV series director, and scriptwriter for more than 20 years, Margaret thrives on fictional storytelling based on true events. Some of her most acclaimed works include Tears in Heaven, an 11-part docuseries, and Care for the World, China’s first documentary spotlighting the trafficking of women and children, for which she spent a year saving trapped women and kids around China, alongside the police.
Later, Margaret adapted the true events surrounding her non-fiction works into a 26-episode narrative TV series titled I Am No Lamb/Flowers Bloom Once Again.
Established media publications now hail Margaret as China’s first director and writer to give literary prominence to the discourse on the trafficking of women and children. The TV series broke viewership records in more than 10 provinces and regions across China, surpassing TV series starring A-list actors. Her TV series had one of the highest profiles at that year’s Beijing International Film Festival and was the first to be sold at the market then.
Margaret’s strengths in externalizing her characters’ inner turmoil and desires continue to flourish in her new film. Leveraging Margaret’s ability to create deep emotional resonance, See Me Once More, My Dear Kid will strike a chord with every audience member, who will experience a soulful feeling of empathy toward the characters on screen.
It is Margaret’s sincere hope to commemorate the tragic events in Florida and to honor the victims through this film – especially the heroic actions of Peter Wang, who sacrificed his life while trying to protect others. Meanwhile, Margaret dedicates this film to the mothers and families who suffered devastating losses and who are in need of emotional healing.
Join The Club
Margaret thinks the mission of an artist is to "shed a light on humanity’s heart".
“It is by brightening up the loneliness and despair that we acquire the strengths we need to carry on,” says the filmmaker.
See Me Once More, My Dear Kid is her first feature-length narrative film. The rough cut is already heart-touching. The film has wrapped editing. France-based composer Guy Renardeau is currently working on the music for the film, and Chinese composer Jianguo Wan is responsible for the traditional Chinese music in the film along with sound design.
Due to the pandemic, the making of this film involved many challenges and obstacles, but it was blessed with support from Margaret’s film and TV industry friends from mainland China, Hong Kong, Germany, France, and America. Everyone came on board with tremendous empathy and compassion, despite the difficulties caused by pandemic-related restrictions.
According to the filmmaker, post-production should be completed by November 2022. Her plan is to seek worldwide distribution, leveraging the prowess of established international distributors to give this film more visibility and a broader reach.
Margaret, who is also an award-winning director, producer, TV talk show host, and poet, would like to thank Heart Of Hollywood and its CEO Giovanna Salas for their support. She also thanks every member of her crew, since all of them are continuing to work hard in order to put out another beautiful film.
Get featured! - Heart Of Hollywood Magazine
Subscribe
Contact us
