Sriracha is a short queer-comedy film that tells the story of a late-night encounter between Li, a non-binary east-asian girl dressed as a drag king, and Hamza, a seemingly hostile traditional Turkish kebab shop owner.

Li and Hamza clash when they request sriracha on their kebab at a chaotic 24-hour Kebab shop in midnight London. Their argument is interrupted when a group of drunk young British guys, also with an unusual kebab request, enter the shop and spill homophobic and racist comments at Li and Hamza.

This story is about gender and racism seen through the eyes of two asian people living in London - but who come from very different backgrounds. This story is also about their acceptance and solidarity to each other when facing racism, and about Hamza opening up for Li’s gender non-conforming appearance and sexuality. 

Li is an east-asian non-binary lesbian in their early twenties who came to the UK as an undergraduate English Literature student. They were assigned female at birth but they identify as non-binary. Li grew up in Asia and came to the UK for their studies. 

Li loves to play with gender stereotypes and they have been doing drag for some time as a hobby, as a way to grow their self-confidence, strength and sense of liberty. Li’s drag is raw and brutal - they use drag as a way to mock toxic masculinity and gender expectations and stereotypes. Out of drag Li has a strong personally and they’re not afraid of conflict. They have a very strong sense of justice, social rights and identity.

Hamza is a middle-aged Turkish man who has been living in the UK for over 30 years now, as a Kebab shop owner. Hamza is a stubborn perfectionist and he truly enjoys making kebabs, as he has been doing for so many years, as he is determined to always bring the most authentic Turkish flavours to London.

Outside of work, Hamza has a family where he preserves conservative family values and patriarchal gender roles. He really misses his old days Turkey and, because is such a perfectionist, he tries to control whatever he can - but he knows that this is because, as an immigrant, he doesn’t have much control over most things in this country.

During my two years in London, my feelings toward this city became just like the taste of sriracha - bittersweet. As a person of colour and as someone who’s part of a sexual/gender minority, my experience in London has had some rough patches. 

I was born in Taipei, a city without much ethnic diversity but that it’s known for its openminded attitude towards the LGBTQIA+ community in Asia - although not as much as London. In the beginning, I thought that moving to London - to what I thought was this advanced, modern and open minded city - would allow me to live a freer and more colourful and authentic life. I was excited to experience the LGBTQIA+ community here and to express my gender identity freely, however, the reality seems to be a bit different from what I had hoped.

I believe London is quite polarised, as I have experience both extremes: at times I have felt accepted and welcomed, having met so many kind and warm people; but at times, I faced unprecedented marginalisation and discrimination as a foreigner, as a non-native english speaker, as a POC and as a queer person. 

This film is inspired by these experiences in London and it is my attempt at summarising these two years living here.

The starting point of the film is food - because food and how we eat are where cultural difference are most visible. Also, I think it’s very fitting giving how London’s multicultural diversity can be easily seen through the vast variety of world’s food easily available everywhere in the city. This film is an absurd-comedy: a conflict that starts over food cultures is then turned into a conflict over gender identity and finally it turns into a race conflict. With everyone holding their own contradictory opinions, the deadlock situation is inevitable, a food fight begins.

Portraying such heavy and big themes - like homophobia and racism - on a short-film can feel intimidating. But, Sriracha is like a simple appetiser with a tangy aftertaste that makes you want to take another bite and explore its flavours even more after it’s over.

Weili Hsing (Writer & Director) is an acclaimed east-asian queer director currently studying a Master's degree at The London Film School after graduating from The National Taiwan University of Arts. She is interested in queer and female stories and aims to turn women's and LGBTQ+ issues into lighted-hearted comedies. Her previous films, like Ruby and Bin Bin (2017) and The Scarf (2022) have been both selected at the Taiwan International Queer Film Festival and have been acclaimed by the East-Asian Festival circuit, in cities like Shanghai and Seoul. 

Ana Graça (Producer) is a producer, director and art director from Brazil, now based in London. She has graduated from a Master in Filmmaking at Kingston University where she specialised in directing fiction. She is deeply interested in visual storytelling and has a focus on world-building and queer stories. She loves the art department but also has experience on the production department, having worked for an Apple TV series.

Karina Stephan (Producer) is originally from Beirut. She pursued her Bachelor's degree at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts before heading to London Film School for her Master's. She works in various fields such as cinematography, directing, and producing and is dedicated to crafting cinematic narratives that explore diverse perspectives and cultures.

Ravena Tran (Director of Photography) is a Chinese-Vietnamese American cinematographer and filmmaker. Her work is about finding genuine human connections and the beauty in everyday moments. Ravenna's Short film "And Then" won the Audience Award at Outfest, and is the winner of Cinematic Tokyo Competition Best Short Award / Governor of Tokyo Award at the 2021 Short Asia Film Festival & Asia in Tokyo.

Locations are super important to a film and some may even say that locations are what make or break a film! For our film, Hamza’s kebab shop is the one and only location and, because of that, we need to find the perfect kebab shop in which to bring this story to life. 

For making the film, we embarked on a journey to find a kebab shop with a good size - big enough to fit a 20 people crew plus equipments and to allow us to have enough space to position the camera. The shop also needed to be on a relatively quiet street - so that our sound team can get a good quality sound.

Finding such a kebab a shop has not been an easy task, and we have visited several shops all over London - some even outside of London - trying to find a suitable one. We are currently in talks with a few different kebab shops in London negotiating rates for our filming. 

But, the biggest problem we have encountered so far is related to our budget - as renting out a whole kebab shop for 3 days and covering all their costs with staff is not cheap! And that’s why we’re making this crowdfunding campaign. If you would like to help us make this film and afford a good location, please read more of our pledge bellow.

Making films can be expensive. There are thousands of stories that could never be told because of lack of funding. Every contribution to our film will go a long way, from assuring a safe and pleasant workplace for our crew and cast to helping us secure the ideal kebab shop for our story, every cent counts. 

Our budget has been made to cover all that is essential to the making of this film and to assure that there is no wastage of resources. Here are some quick examples of what your contribution could help us with: 

£18 provides a crew member with three sumptuous meals on set

£50 helps us with car rental charges for a day

£250 would ensure we have on-set security when shooting on a shop on a busy street

£500 would help us getting some better lighting and sound equipment for our film

£800 will ensure that we can get the film graded by incredible colourists

£1000 will help us with the daily cost of our location

We believe it is also important that you know how you will help if you decide to contribute. Below, you can find a high-level breakdown of how we will use funds raised from the crowdfunding campaign:

Risks and challenges lie at the very core of filmmaking, but our crew draw upon their experience on successfully delivering projects. The crew also certifies that a detailed risk-assessment will be carried out in order to guarantee everyone's safety while shooting.

We also already have the majority of our funding in place. But we still need your support to secure a fitting location, to bring on board talent and increase the production value for set and costume.

When the campaign is over, we will keep you up to date with the production, post production and delivery of ‘Sriracha’ and all Greenlit reward tiers to make sure that you are fully in the loop. If you want to ask us a question, do email srirachashortfilm@gmail.com at any point and we will get back to you as soon as possible. You can also keep in touch with the production through our social media channels (@srirachafilm). Give us a shout!