Andrew Ahn Returns to ‘Spa Night’ at 10 Years

A decade after “Spa Night” launched his career, filmmaker Andrew Ahn looks back at the film’s heat, tenderness, and refusal to make homophobia the easy villain. He’s also thinking about where independent filmmaking is headed—and why the institutions that shape

A decade after “Spa Night” first arrived—sweat-beaded, quietly electric, and unlike the desaturated gray that dominated so many independent screens—Andrew Ahn is preparing to revisit the movie in public, not just in memory.

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will host “Spa Night” on Thursday, June 18, with writer/director Andrew Ahn and actor Joe Seo appearing in person. The conversation will be moderated by comedian and actor Margaret Cho.

For Ahn, the occasion isn’t nostalgia for its own sake. He’s still talking about what he built and what it cost. and he’s still wrestling with the industry that helped build him. This year marks ten years since the 2016 debut. a film that Ahn came up through Sundance Labs in the same era as Ryan Coogler and Chloé Zhao—both of whom have since gone on to win Oscars.

Ahn now has four features to his name, has directed episodes of “Bridgerton,” and—based on how he describes his work—has stuck to a philosophy that hasn’t dulled with time.

“The only truth in this industry is that the industry is constantly evolving,” Ahn told IndieWire.

His evolution is visible when you rewatch “Spa Night,” starting with its look. While other indies and studios kept leaning into “gritty” desaturated gray. Ahn and cinematographer Ki Jin Kim built something color-forward and physically grounded: widescreen compositions that emphasize the arrangement of bodies. paired with an unembarrassed attention to the color. texture. and heat of skin. David Cho’s (Joe Seo) millennial wardrobe is the only detail that time-stamps the film.

The intention behind that aesthetic was never about chasing trends, Ahn said. “We were not trying to force an aesthetic based on a trend,” he told IndieWire. He pointed to the settings that shaped the film’s world: “We were thinking about Koreatown. about a sense of repression. a sense of summer. sexual exploration.”.

He’s especially proud of a casting-room decision made by Kim. While watching audition tapes. the director of photography decided the film should be shot one way if one actor was cast and another way if Seo got the part. In Ahn’s telling. the plan was based purely on the energy each gave the role—handheld if an actor was cast. locked to a tripod if Seo got it.

“That feels like filmmaking,” Ahn said.

A Film Independent grant and an “old school, super French” colorist named Marjolaine Mispelaere helped Ahn and Kim pursue grain and touch. Ahn described the logic simply: “so much of this film is about desire.”

The desire in “Spa Night,” though, isn’t locked behind coyness. The film features nude bodies in real spas. Ahn said the cruisy interiors were stitched together from two locations. including a since-shuttered spot called Lion Spa and a second Koreatown bathhouse. Neither location exists in its former glory today.

Shot on a microbudget years before intimacy coordinators became standard. Ahn said the production meant taking on responsibilities that would later be filled by specialists. “We were doing as much as we could pre-intimacy coordinators, doing that job ourselves,” he said. He added that the existence of that support matters: “The more people there to support your actors, the better.”.

For Ahn, the nudity itself never felt like the point of provocation. “It was very story-driven. I didn’t feel like we were exploiting anybody or titillating.”

That refusal to chase the easiest conflict—especially when queer life is involved—has been consistent across his career. Ten years ago. in what he described as his then-first interview with Ahn. he said “Spa Night” held more than a simple headline about condemnation for being gay. David’s dilemma wasn’t, Ahn argued, “that people are condemning him for being gay. That’s too easy.”.

Last year. promoting his version of “The Wedding Banquet. ” Ahn said the idea again in almost the same shape: the film didn’t want to “deal with homophobia. which would be such an easy villain.” Instead. Ahn said what looks like homophobia can be something else entirely: “What may seem like homophobia is just the grandmother’s concern to protect her grandson.”.

Ahn seemed almost mildly startled when asked about how that approach has held over the past decade. “It’s interesting that that philosophy has stuck around these past 10 years. I didn’t quite realize it,” he said. He connected the method to a deeper focus on lived experience: “Part of my interest is in the internal lives of queer people. how we’re internalizing that. what is our own struggle.”.

That interest isn’t a retreat from reality. Ahn said the hardest part of making “Spa Night” was doing it inside the Korean American community. Actors and locations turned the project down because it was queer. He responded by converting fear into fuel. “Even if no one’s being explicitly homophobic. there’s always the anxiety of going into a space and wondering. ‘Once they find out who I am. is that going to change the way they look at me?’ Compartmentalizing the fear was the only way I could make the movie.”.

Even when his projects have gained momentum, that anxiety has never fully disappeared. On the set of “The Wedding Banquet. ” while staging an elaborate Korean wedding ceremony. Ahn said he found himself bracing before meeting the consultants and veteran actress Yuh-jung Youn. He was unsure how a woman of her generation would feel about performing in a gay movie. Then, Youn told him about her own queer son. Ahn said it changed his mood immediately: “That made me feel like we’re a creative family. that we can make this film together.”.

In the same spirit, Ahn says he keeps his stories aimed at nuance rather than at a homophobia-shaped “easy villain.” He also doesn’t feel pulled toward the violence-focused canon. “I just have a lot of empathy for my characters,” he said.

A question he asked about reconciliation early in his career returns here: did Ahn ever resolve how his gay identity and Korean identity fit together—or did he stop needing them to?

“A big reason I’m a filmmaker is that I want to tell stories that reconcile these two identities. ” he said. “It’s not that I’ve figured it out. I’m just trying in my own work to create a space where being gay and being Korean don’t feel in opposition. The only way to change culture is to create culture.”.

He says all four of his features are about Asian Americans, and all are queer either openly or, as he puts it, implicitly in the case of 2019’s “Driveways.”

For a while, Ahn didn’t believe this could become a career path. After “Spa Night. ” he said he was “pretty certain” he’d have to make films that weren’t queer and/or Asian—describing that assumption as “so nuts.” He named Justin Lin’s “Annapolis” and Wayne Wang’s “Maid in Manhattan” as the type of studio assignments he thought he’d have to accept.

He largely sidestepped that trajectory.

Ahn sounds most energized by the company he keeps. James Sweeney’s “Twinless” made an impression on him. “What a joy to see someone who’s also gay and Korean kill it. That’s one I’m so happy is part of the canon,” Ahn said.

That canon—what Ahn wasn’t sure would have room for him in 2016—is exactly the question now eating at him. If his principles have held, his confidence in the road ahead has not.

“I can definitely sense a certain conservatism in the industry that’s mirroring what’s happening in the world,” Ahn said. “I feel like with these four movies I’ve been riding a wave. I’m a little bit scared to say that wave might be dying, and I have to paddle back out and try to catch another.”

That fear comes with numbers attached. Earlier this month. a Substack post began circulating with a statistic that could hit hard for film programmers and anyone trying to measure whether independent festival paths still pay off. The post’s author, Curry Barker’s “Obsession,” is a film shot for $750,000 that routed around traditional gatekeepers. The claim attached to it is that “Obsession” out-earned all 68 titles to play the U.S. Dramatic Competition at Sundance since 2020 combined. The author also said their accounting is “admittedly generous-to-Sundance. ” and invited people to quibble with the math. including by padding the festival side of the ledger with streaming acquisition prices.

Ahn doesn’t need the final spreadsheet to feel the impact of the moment. The figure, he said through the atmosphere it suggests, lands like a verdict on “a whole way of making independent film,” just as a new generation of filmmakers is deciding whether festivals can provide a return on investment.

Ahn, by temperament and biography, has always looked toward institutions rather than away from them. Thirteen years ago. he honed his craft at the Sundance Screenwriters Intensive. sitting in rooms led by Joan Tewkesbury (screenwriter of Robert Altman’s “Nashville”). who just turned 90. and listening to a young Coogler—at the time someone who had just won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for “Sinners.”.

Ahn said Sundance didn’t give him a deal so much as a standard. “There was a rigor I don’t know if I’d ever considered. Making a feature is hard work,” he said. “The constant feedback, the reflection. Sometimes when you’re alone. you think. ‘I’ve worked enough.’ It’s only when you have other people around that you go. ‘Wait. no. there’s more.’”.

He still uses it as a guardrail against complacency. “As I get older in my career, I have to remind myself not to coast,” he said.

When the conversation turns to Gen Z filmmakers building audiences on YouTube and selling finished movies straight to distributors. bypassing labs. festivals. and fellowships entirely. Ahn doesn’t react with anger. He sounds honest about what he knows and what he doesn’t. “I’m less familiar with people building a film career through direct audience engagement on social media. I don’t know if I want to engage in that, but I’m happy that it exists,” he said.

The movement that launched him may be shifting, but Ahn isn’t mourning the passing of one model. “I don’t bemoan the loss of a previous era. It’s cool that there are so many pathways for people to tell stories.” The question. he said. is whether the new pathways will produce “the next queer Korean kid with a small. strange. personal film.”.

To protect that future, he keeps circling back to the pipeline that shaped his cohort. “I love the institutions that supported me, Sundance, Film Independent. I would not be who I am without them,” he said. “I’m doing everything I can to give back.”

He also described the impact of seeing Coogler and Zhao side by side at the Oscars, saying: “The impact is undeniable. The legacy exists.”

What Ahn wants next is both practical and romantic. He says he’s loved making comedies. but he’s “dying to do another drama.” He named Celine Song as inspiration and said he wants a “sweeping love story.” He daydreams about a music movie in the key of “Almost Famous” or “Amadeus.” Whatever he makes. he expects it will keep its core identity intact: “Hopefully they’ll all still be gay and Asian in some way. ” he said.

Whatever wave the industry is riding right now, Ahn sounds determined to paddle toward whatever comes next—with the same through-line that has defined “Spa Night” all along. Make rigorous work about his community. Don’t let the easy villain win. Create culture instead of pleading for it.

That means, for now, holding the line with the film that started it—“Spa Night” screening at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on Thursday, June 18, with Ahn and Joe Seo in person and Margaret Cho moderating.

Andrew Ahn Spa Night Joe Seo Ki Jin Kim Marjolaine Mispelaere Sundance Labs Film Independent Bridgerton The Wedding Banquet Yuh-jung Youn Driveways Twinless Academy Museum of Motion Pictures Margaret Cho Park City Sundance