Editor’s Note: Behind the Lens is a digital video series featuring bold California indie filmmakers pushing the boundaries of their craft. Each episode captures the personal experiences that inform a filmmaker’s work and the risks they take to bring stories to the screen.
Pete Lee has never been known to stay in one lane. He’s a writer and director; his short film Don’t Be a Hero premiered as an official selection at 2018’s Sundance Film Festival. He makes stylish, athletic music videos (for The Coup, Atmosphere and Aesop Rock, among others). He’s also a food photographer, a lifelong kung fu aficionado, an outspoken advocate for immigrants and homeless folks, and an erstwhile musician-slash-standup-comedian who likes to cover Mariah Carey.
But the most accurate word for Lee, really, is ringleader: wherever he goes, interesting people follow. You only need one glimpse of the Taiwan-born, Boston suburb-raised 36-year-old giving direction on a film set—or making jokes and bossing his friends-turned-sous-chefs around in his tiny kitchen in the Mission District as he cooks dinner for a packed house of local artists, writers and musicians—to understand you’re dealing with someone special.
Lee’s a ham, but there’s a distinctly collaborative thread that runs through his films: an eye for an unlikely pairing or mashup, a gift for knowing when to step back and let magic work—and then a tendency to just say “to hell with it” and invite everyone to join in. He’s scrappy in a way that screams Bay Area, drawn to artistic and logistical challenges that would make other filmmakers balk. And, whether solo or through Scandinavia, the Bay Area production company he co-founded, he always manages to get others excited about outrageous, sometimes far-from-lucrative creative endeavors as well.
His protagonists are often loners and outsiders. But: “I’m at my best when I’m in the company of other people,” is how Lee puts it. KQED Arts sat down with the filmmaker to hear more. —Intro by Emma Silvers
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How did you get your start in filmmaking?