How two friends made a movie about love (and…cabbage?) in two months

Christina Oh is familiar with tight turnarounds. She’s an indie filmmaker after all. (Her credits include Minari, Okja, and Ad Astra.)

But when describing how quickly her latest project Bubble & Squeak came together, Oh sounds like she’s recounting a wild night out in the too-bright light of the next day: A little bewildered and very much in awe.

“Honestly, it was pretty wild,” she says, stretching out the last syllable a few beats. “It’s one of those things where you don’t realize what you’re doing until you’re done. Like, ‘Crap. This could be a thing. Can we get our stuff together in time?’ And then all of a sudden you’re in Estonia making a movie.”

Written and directed by Evan Twohy, Bubble & Squeak follows a fraying newlywed couple on the run from “a ruthless customs enforcer who suspects them of smuggling cabbages” into a fictional European country where the leafy green is illegal. The film’s production has a kooky kismet that fits its logline. Actor Steven Yeun shepherded it from 2020’s The Black List pool through COVID lockdowns and summer 2023’s WGA strike before bringing it to Oh in December 2023 as a potential project for Celadon Pictures, the production company they’d just co-founded.

Oh’s previous work skewed more dramatic than comedic. But the story Bubble tells—"This idea of relationships and the things that we see and choose not to see in our partners, the things we don’t talk about, yet they’re holy, sacred to us,” she explains—felt like the right story to start off Celadon. (Who knew the humble Brassica oleracea could do so much deep narrative work?)

Film prep began May 2024. They shot in June and wrapped the following month with the hopes of getting it ready for Sundance by September.

With Bubble’s postproduction team spread out across New York City, Los Angeles, and Berlin, using Dropbox kept everything moving—and everyone on the same page.

“As an independent film, where you don’t have money to fly everyone in all the time or have post in one spot, it was a great alternative,” Oh says. “It was super helpful to be able to securely share things: They're able to upload it, and then we're able to see it within the day.”

Oh tells us more about how Bubble & Squeak came together.

How were you able to focus more on creating than worrying about logistics when you're doing something so quickly?
The biggest thing we've been utilizing it for is the ability to securely share files. I personally love DocSend because you can keep track of if they actually watched or opened it—which now when I get a DocSend link, I'm like, Make sure you sit and read through everything!

It really holds you accountable, but it also gives a peace of mind. In our new digital post[-production] world, it's so much easier to share links and stuff, but it's also way easier for something to leak.

With this being your first outing under Celadon, what would a leak have meant?
We don't have distribution yet, so we have to sell the film. People don't understand why I'm so gung ho about security, but I care about people seeing it with the right context. As a filmmaker, I really believe in theatrical releases. That's our primary goal: to have people see it together. If something leaks prior to it being sold, it diminishes our ability to sell or control it.

One of the greatest things about Dropbox was having the ability to share cuts with people outside of our immediate post team—whether it was a few friends or family—who we could get feedback from. I think that was a huge part of being able to do things efficiently on the limited timeline that we had—being able to share these files and have people that we trusted give feedback. It was lovely to be able to do that and have that peace of mind because you can control it: You can put a time limit on it or have it be password secured and all that good stuff.

How did you keep everything organized?
Truthfully, I wish I was a little more organized. The amount of stuff that you get when you're making a movie is so crazy. It's primarily done on email, but you get a lot of stuff. You get a lot of documents. You get a lot of questions from your department heads, like, “Hey, can we approve this design?” Or, “What do you think of these three sweaters?” So it's important to stay organized.

I have project folders, because we have a lot of things in development and things that are more active. That’s probably as organized as I can get, but yeah, it's kind of chaotic. I wish I had a better mechanism.

You and Steven already knew each other from past projects but hadn’t worked together in this way before. What helped you make this transition into co-producers?
So we met, oh God, like eight years ago now. I think one of the greatest things about our partnership is that we like listening to each other. I also love that we have similar-but-very-different tastes, so it kind of makes for interesting conversation.

How so?
Even if it's not something we necessarily agree with, in speaking together, we care about what each other's saying, so we want to talk things through. Because I really want to understand, like, “Oh, why do you love this project?” Or “Why shouldn't we do this?”

When you're producing with someone, you really have to build a level of trust with each other. And when you have a company with someone, you definitely have to trust that you're building a slate together that you're really supportive of. I really adore our working relationship because there's a lot of trust there.

Steven and I love to talk about the gray that exists between black and white. Like things just aren't always that simple, and things can be really messy, but messy doesn't necessarily mean bad. It's just... it is what it is. Circumstances are what they are, and your own individual perspective makes them good or bad, but the reality is, it just is what it is, and you just have to work through it and see it for what it is.

I feel like I should give you my therapy copay. (Laughter)
Again, I adore my relationship with Steven, because this breakthrough was born from a conversation we were having. It really changed some of my perspective on life and situations.

I think it makes me, hopefully, a better producer, because, the amount of things that happen on set where you're just like, “Oh my God!” But you don't have to pour so much of your mental, emotional, psychic energy into something that just is. You can just say, “You know what? We have a problem. We have to fix this costume thing. I feel that I'm upset and frustrated, but that's okay. I got to solve the issue. Let's just focus our energy on that and move on.”

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.