Breaking Baz: How “Scrappy Team” Behind ‘The Farewell’ Blossomed To Make ‘Expats’ With Nicole Kidman’s Blossom Films; Limited Series Gets Premiere Date & London Fest Slot

EXCLUSIVE: Producer Dani Melia describes how “a scrappy team” that made filmmaker Lulu Wang’s acclaimed low-budget feature The Farewell joined forces with Blossom Films’ Nicole Kidman and Per Saari to make “this big international production” Expats for Prime Video.

Melia tells me how she and Wang had “long talked about wanting to continue working together” after making The Farewell. 

Then, while they were promotingthe movie in Australia, Kidman approached Wang about directing an adaptation of Janice Y.K. Lee’s book The Expatriates.

Wang was excited, and Melia recalls the director telling her: ”I need to find a way to do this with you and the rest of the crew who did The Farewell. I want my creative team onboard, and I think this should be our next thing.”

Melia says that quite a few creatives from The Farewell ended up making the leap with them.

They include Melia herself, who co-founded Local Time productions with Wang after their experience working together on The Farewell, along with cinematographer Anna Franquesa-Solano, composer Alex Weston, production designer Yong Ok Lee, editor Matt Friedman and art director W. Haley Ho.

“We had the support of lots of new creative blood as well, which was wonderful, and the support of Blossom and Per and Nicole, obviously, helping us transition from a scrappy team who made a low-budget feature that crossed over to making this big international production,” Melia says. “It was a great learning experience for all of us.”

The producer noted that there was a lot that shooting The Farewell and Expats was “very similar, even though this was a much bigger budget and had support of a big studio and not made independently. But I think the creative team kept the same eye on the ball.

“Lulu’s creative vision was our north star driving all of us.”

Melia adds: “There [also] were a lot of similarities in that we had a very international team on this, just how we did on The Farewell. The cast on this project was even more international than on The Farewell. We had cast from Australia, United States, UK, the Philippines, local Hong Kongers.”

Similarly, the creative team came from far and wide.

Off the top of her head she cites