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“Miami is the City of Hustle”: Jing Ai Ng on SXSW 2025 Premiere Forge
Forge Common associations audiences might have with Miami: cruise lines, café con leche, beach parties, plastic surgery, Art Basel, Dexter, Scarface, a diverse and predominantly Latino and Caribbean population. AFI Conservatory graduate Jing Ai Ng wants to turn some of those tropes around with her debut feature Forge, premiering in the Narrative Spotlight section of SXSW 2025. The Malaysian-born filmmaker grew up shuttling between Southeast Asia and Miami and wanted to honor the Florida city she knew—that of first and second gen Asian subcultures, rare dim sum restaurants and a particular vein of white collar crime: art forgery.
After first exploring a sibling relationship in her Mississippi-set short Delta, Forge is the story of twentysomething Chinese American siblings and expert forgers Coco and Raymond (played respectively by Andie Ju and Brandon Soo Hoo), who are tempted into a deal with a spoiled white millennial millionaire inheritor (Edmund Donovan) involving recreating his late grandfather’s damaged paintings—hurricanes are another trope that can’t be divorced from Miami—and duping them off to an art dealer from New York. With sharp, modern lighting in its night interiors and exteriors, and comfortably passing the Bechdel Test so often that it might have created a new ceiling, Forge is a thriller about feats of counterfeit, AI and the American Dream, but more about art, “American art,” worth and self worth. Ahead of the film’s premiere, I spoke to Ng about these themes, setting and knowability of her characters.
Filmmaker: You graduated from the AFI Conservatory’s directors track in 2021, and Forge is your first feature. How did the network you built and training help you make this film?
Ng: Most of my heads of departments were my classmates. I went to film school with the goal of meeting people to work with. I’m originally from Malaysia; I grew up between Malaysia and Miami, so when I moved to LA, it was a new place for me, and I went to film school hoping to find those collaborators. My two main producers are AFI producers from my class, as are my director of photography, my production designer, my editor, so it’s really cool to make this feature with people that I’ve known for so long and who were trusted and tried collaborators. It’s fun as well, to be perfectly honest.
Filmmaker: Had you made your short Delta with the same crew?
Ng: There were some variations, but for the most part, yeah.
Filmmaker: Right after film school, you were accepted into the Film Independent Screenwriting Lab and the Thousand Miles Project run by Pachinko showrunner Soo Hugh and UCP. Did you workshop Forge in both these labs?
Ng: Yes, I did. I was working on the script for a really long time. The Film Independent Screenwriting Lab was my first, right out of film school, so that was awesome. Angela Lee, the head of artist development, was a big fan of Forge from the very beginning and championed the script. It was really different back then. It changed from being a story set in New York to a story in Miami, but it was always about art forgery because that was my fascination. I love white collar crime.
Filmmaker: That’s a quite a big change! Can you talk more about how your script changed in these two labs? Also, who were your mentors?
Ng: There was a series of mentors in the Film Independent Screenwriting Lab. Andrew Ahn came to speak, as well as Chloé Zhao [and] Derek Cianfrance, so it was a really great host of speakers. At the time, Forge was pretty much all plot, and I hadn’t figured out how to integrate deeper themes about race and identity. Now it’s so much more layered and it’s very, very personal: I’m partially from Miami, I had a weird childhood. The script changed locations. Coco [Andie Ju] was originally a supporting character, now she’s the main art forger.
Filmmaker: In the press notes, you talk about the cultural alienation you felt growing up shuttling between Malaysia and Miami, and how your siblings were important to you.
Ng: To this day, we still have a group chat. One lives in Miami, another lives in Malaysia. But mainly my siblings informed who I was because I was so young and they were six years ahead of me, so I was constantly emulating them. My brother was definitely a bit of a rebel and forged fake IDs in college, which I’m sure he doesn’t mind me saying now [laughs]. Mmy sister was the complete opposite; she’s the one who went to Harvard. When I write Asian characters, I like to see a breadth of personality, and depth, and I think my siblings taught me that growing up. The bond we share is really special, because it is also something you have to let go, to grow. That’s what Forge is about.
Filmmaker: The Miami that you show in this film is different from the Miami that we are used to seeing in film/TV and from the predominantly Latino and Hispanic city that Miami is. At the same time, I had the sense that there was a certain internationalism built into the script and in the way you show Miami. Do you agree with that?
Ng: Yes, Miami is a predominantly Hispanic city, but it’s beyond defining Miami as a single thing. It is a very international city because of, for example, the variation in Hispanic cultures; there’s very many that are mixed in. I would describe it as very similar to Malaysia, a cultural melting pot all in this city and trying to get along. The clash of cultures that creates is a really interesting—a chaotic Miami which is what I wanted to capture more than anything. [At the same time], instead of trying to speak to every single person’s experience, I just wanted to capture my own.
A good example is Tropical Chinese, the dim sum restaurant to go to since the 1980s. I wrote it into the script as a gag, essentially, like it would be funny to write Tropical into an art forgery script. We ended up using the name and filming there because the owner thought it was really funny. For anyone who comes to Miami, Tropical is a pretty familiar name. So, there’s one side of Miami that is the touristy side, but there’s another side known to the people who actually live there. I consider it one of my hometowns, and can only speak to my experience and be specific about that.
Filmmaker: Which Miami locations were you trying to show, and did you shoot in those actual neighborhoods? Also, were you familiar with Art Basel and was that an inspiration for the art world of the movie?
Ng: We shot in a lot of the actual locations. The entire movie is filmed in Miami, which I don’t think is the case for most films set in Miami anymore. The beach and beach club we shot in is in Virginia Key, which is iconic with lots of history. Tropical was the big one for us because it’s been there for so long. The owner is in one of the scenes as an extra. He got a kick out of reading the script and he was like, “What do you mean you wrote my children as criminals? My daughter’s eight!” Then there was the Pérez Museum, one of the iconic contemporary art museums in Miami, designed by Herzog & de Meuron, a Swiss architect. The barren concrete look has become synonymous with Miami now.
[Regarding Art Basel], with an indie film with a budget as low as ours, I really had to reach into my imagination and the past to essentially create artists so that we wouldn’t run into any copyright issues, which is of course ironic for a film about art forgery. That’s the main reason I think our film is dealing with specific kind of art as opposed to trying to encompass all the contemporary art usually showing at Art Basel. But I wanted to capture that aspect of it. The Uncle Desmond character mentions the banana at one point, and everyone knows that Art Basel was where the piece was first auctioned.
Filmmaker: Watching the characters’ journey in Forge made me think of the American Dream. This is a Miami we have seen before, where everyone’s skimming off the top, or taking a cut. At the same time, Miami is known for new beginnings, or people returning there. I feel your film represents both aspects through the characters, and the story is specific because of the Asian American first generation experience. Do you feel this is a valid interpretation or one that you intended?
Ng: Absolutely. There are the international twists, like you mentioned, but I think the movie is distinctly American in that everyone’s chasing more, which the American Dream is about, creating new opportunities for yourself in this new land. In this case, they are criminals and reaching for more through unsavory ways that will end up with them in jail. But that’s a story that that isn’t uncommon in an American crime movie. That’s pretty much the blueprint in a weird way. I just think it’s pretty uncommon for an American Dream movie that has Asian & Pacific Islander characters to also include crime. And that is a huge part of it. Miami is the city of hustle. Especially after the pandemic, with the flood of cryptocurrency and how friendly the city has been to tech investment, it has really changed. The American Airlines Arena was called the FTX arena for a little while.
[Regarding the Asian first generation aspect], there is that distinction between the first generation of parents and second generation kids. The first generation parents are like, “This is our restaurant. This is what we built.” Their kids are searching for that little extra. It doesn’t hold them the same way, it doesn’t offer the same amount of comfort. And I think that is very relatable. That’s how I felt growing up, not just wanting to like be in my parents’ world but creating a world for myself. Obviously, I don’t forge art [laughs].
Filmmaker: What is it about the white collar crime genre that interests you?
Ng: When I was around 15 or so, I found out that an extended family member had gone to prison for a white collar crime. My parents had never mentioned this, so I had thought my entire life that we were this perfect Asian family and felt so privileged and lucky to be part of my family. Then I found this really incredibly dark secret through a Wikipedia page, because someone in high school mentioned it. I was like, “That can’t be true,” but it was. I remember confronting my dad at Fort Lauderdale airport while we were getting empanadas, and he just told me some crazy stories. Since that time I’ve been really interested in white collar crime, because the question behind it is always, “Why?” White collar crime isn’t necessarily for people who are completely out of luck. Something I noticed in my research is people just want more, it’s really just greed. To mix that in with the myth of the model minority was something I really wanted to do.
Filmmaker: The script goes into a lot of pains to showcase individual one-on-one relationships among female characters, even with tertiary ones. For example, the assistant is shown to have a relationship with Anne, the art curator character, who is secondary. A scene that stood out to me was the really warm one between FBI agent Emily, played by Kelly Marie Tran, and Coco’s mother, which sets the beginning of the arc that Emily will have with this family. Could you talk a little bit about your interest in honing in on so many female character relationships? And also, was it difficult to incorporate so many tertiary characters into the into the writing?
Ng: Absolutely! I’ve always liked ensemble movies, but the advice you get as an indie filmmaker is that this is your first feature, so do not make an ensemble movie, because you’re supposed to do a movie in a room with two characters talking. But I really thought Coco and Emily needed more. That probably speaks to your point that they have a lot of interactions with tertiary characters, but part of that is that’s what makes a good mystery.
A good example is Julia, the assistant to the art gallerist. We cast that actress locally in Miami. I am a big believer in casting who’s right for the role at all times and opening up that process. It’s a little nervewracking because you have to see as many people as possible, but then magic happens. Now Forge is Julia’s first ever film that’s going to a major festival and it’s her first scene with Kelly Marie Tran. And it’s one of our favorites.
I am a big believer in diversity and representation, we really have to push it. That question about, “These female characters get to talk to a lot of tertiary characters”—if you think about a crime movie featuring male characters, that happens all the time. We don’t even pay it a second thought.
Filmmaker: Kelly Marie Tan is so reliably good in playing Emily. I especially enjoyed watching Emily’s body language change from more laidback to more suspicious and tense as she proceeds with the investigation into Coco’s family. Can you talk about how you worked with Kelly, and how you directed her in the scenes in the second half when she is honing in on the truth?
Ng: Forge is a movie about identity and about facade, who we pretend to be to get what we want. By the end of the movie, Emily realizes she has to be the detective. At first, she’s adjusting to her new surroundings in Miami, but by the time she is interviewing Julia, she’s fully dared to get an answer. That was a really great scene to film, because how does someone like Emily get an answer from someone like Julia? Her colleague is next to her, and he’s just trying to go with a straight interrogation. But Kelly’s character manages to get the same answer in a different way. It’s just a different tactic. So, by the end of the movie, she’s fully in this role as an FBI agent. I think that something she struggles with at first.
Filmmaker: Why do you think she struggles with that?
Ng: The FBI is a notoriously white and male environment, and I tried to show that, of course, but especially with their tactics. Whether you like the FBI or not, they have a really long history in the US of doing many things [laughs]. Because it’s the federal detective agency, it is sometimes viewed as all guns, but there is an art crimes department. That’s the really fascinating part. There are these people who are just fascinated with paintings, and they ask, “Where did this painting go?” I wanted to portray Kelly’s character as a fish out of water. She gets sent down and she’s really isolated. Everyone else is after drugs and searching for criminals, and she’s not doing that. Her colleagues don’t see the value in that.
Filmmaker: Coco, played by Andie Ju, is such an intriguing character. There’s a beautiful scene when she’s talking to Holden [the billionaire antagonist] about how she feels that her acts of forgery are not bad, how she feels she really knows the artists that she’s painting. This scene comes after the one-hour mark, a great place to show a character expressing themselves. But in a way, I came away from the film, in a good way, not fully being able to understand Coco. As Holden points out, she’s a talented artist herself, so why does she choose to recreate other artists’ works? This gets into the whole synthetic nature of Miami, of re-creation and of AI, as you point out in the press notes. So could you talk a little bit about these themes, about what’s driving Coco and what is she still hiding?
Ng: Coco is someone who hides 90% of herself from herself. And when you talk about art forgeries, specifically, they are all people who love art. There’s this really great book that breaks down the many reasons why art forgers forge art. In Coco’s case, it’s definitely like this [delusion] of self grandeur. [Spoiler Alert] which is seeing herself up on TV at the end, which is a big moment for her [spoiler Ends].
I am a big forger fan. I read all the Ripley books before I wrote Forge. There is this level of the unknowable about those characters and I don’t think they themselves ever fully understand why they do that. That’s the most honest way to put it. I find Coco fascinating because I think in that monologue that you’re talking about, when she’s talking about loving art, there’s also the idea of art as a commodity. Is it a bankable asset? How do we value art? If you think about a movie, for example, you’re thinking about box office, about how many people are going to put their eyes on this. But with a painting, it’s not about how many people put their eyes on it. Some paintings are worth millions of dollars; some get stored in the garage and never see the light of day. To someone like Coco in this art world where capitalism rules, there’s an element of bitterness that she has towards everything.
Filmmaker: Do you think Coco, in an alternate life or maybe later on in this same life, would ever paint her own originals? Or does she not want to?
Ng: I think there’s a very deep fear in Coco that whatever she paints wouldn’t be good or valued. There’s a sick satisfaction for her character about knowing how much someone pays for it. At the same time, she doesn’t want to believe in that, but she derives so much of her own self-worth from how much [the art curator Anne] pays for the paintings. A lot of art forgers, from my research, never create their own work because they’re afraid of what that might mean for them, because their value is not necessarily through the art they create. It’s through they art they forge.
Filmmaker: You can give AI your original inputs to create your own original art, or you can ask AI to recreate art. How do you feel about that distinction? The film addresses more the second aspect of recreation and reconstitution. But is it problematic if artists want to just enhance their own original creations through AI?
Ng: I don’t necessarily have all the answers for that, but I do think there is an ethics question about feeding the work of unsuspecting artists to create the model. That’s the theme our film deals with. If you feed someone else’s work into the model, it can paint like them, but if they’re not willing, that’s an ethical issue. I think that’s what we’re dealing with right now with AI and art generators.
