Fridae

Among the award winners of the 2016 Sundance film festival is Joe Seo, a Korean-American actor who won the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Performance.

Seo is the star of Spa Night, a coming of age drama set in Los Angeles's Korean-American community.

Spa Night, written and directed by Andrew Ahn, centers around David Cho (played by Seo), a closeted teen in Los Angeles who discovers an illicit sex culture in Korean spas. The film's exploration into the complexity of identity has won critical acclaim for both its actors and its director.

As Seo was not present for the ceremony, Ahn accepted on his behalf, saying, "[Seo] gave so much of himself to this part. I knew it was always going to be so hard portraying this duality of being this gay Korean-American. He gave his whole being to it."

The Sundance judges remarked that: "Joe Seo shines in the role of David, as he grapples with a percolating yet forbidden sexual awakening. With this feature debut, writer/director Andrew Ahn, like his main character, is on the brink of something big."

The film follows David Cho, who lives in a tight-knit, traditional home in the heart of Koreatown, Los Angeles, with his first-generation parents.

David works at the family restaurant, but business is slow and the restaurant is forced to close. His mother, Soyoung, finds another waitressing gig, but his unemployed father, Jin, begins to spiral downward. As the patriarchal balance teeters, tension builds at home.

Appeasing his mother, David pretends to go to SAT classes but secretly takes a job at a Korean spa to help his family make ends meet. At the spa, he discovers an underground world of gay sex that scares the hell out of him but also really excites him.

As David dares to explore his sexuality, his family life crumbles, forcing him to reconcile his own desires with his parents' hopes, dreams, and expectations.

To learn more about the movie through an interview with the director Andrew Ahn, see the video below: