About this submission
Homesick and lonely, two South Korean teenagers adjusting to college in the states spend the night together, roaming around their desolate campus while unearthing burdens from the past. Poetically photographed and sensitively performed, "To Cry On Moonlight Nights" is a semi-autobiographical drama that tackles the painful cycle of intergenerational trauma while celebrating the catharsis of a gently momentous connection. It presents a nuanced portrayal of Asian American masculinity and boyhood that we rarely see represented in modern coming of age films.
Creator
Christian Lee is a 43rd Annual Telly Award® winning visual storyteller and Hoyt Scholar at UCLA. His work has been published in The New York Times, TIME Magazine, Vogue, the Los Angeles Times, the World Photography Organization, Lenscratch, LensCulture, and Booooooom. Lee is an Emma Bowen Foundation Fellow, Sony World Photo Honoree, The KALH Future Grant Recipient, YoungArts Winner, and a Scholastic National Medalist with recognition from over 60 competitions and publications. Awarded The 2025 Lenscratch Student Prize, he is a Class of XXXVII alumnus of Canon’s Eddie Adams Workshop, an Up Next Photographer at Diversify Photo, and a Member of NAACP, Film Independent, and AAJA, whose moving and still images explore themes of youth culture, assimilation, and intergenerational trauma, all within communities of color. Lee works in Creative Affairs at Warner Bros and remains available for commission worldwide. more...