Peach Milk

What happens when the birthday you keep for someone who never comes is finally witnessed?

Every year, Mara sets the table: a cake, a candle, and a glass of peach milk for the child she left behind. It’s the ritual that keeps her alive and the wound that never heals. When that child finally returns, not as a guest but with a camera, the past collides with the present in a story of love, regret, and resilience. Peach Milk is our final-year AUT short film - raw, lyrical, and unforgettable. If this stirs you, help us pour the next glass and press “record.”  With your support, we can bring this haunting vision to the screen and give voice to a story too rarely told.

Director:

My name is Capu, and I’m the director/writer of Peach Milk. Peach Milk was born from two worlds that shaped me. The first came from my nights bartending in a strip nightclub, where the city split in two: one side asleep, the other still clawing toward morning. In that neon world, people showed their rawest selves: their weakness, their longing, their fragile humanity. The second came from my own family: every year when I was overseas, my family would still hold a birthday party for me in my absence. That ritual of love and absence is the same heartbeat that drives Peach Milk, where Mara celebrates her child’s birthday every year with a glass of peach milk, even though the child is gone.

When I chose to tell this story, people asked, “Are you crazy?” Maybe I am. But cinema should take risks. My favorite film, Buffalo ’66, taught me that cinema can be messy, fragile, and deeply human. Our vision is simple: to create a film that is raw in truth, poetic in spirit, and unafraid of imperfection. We may still be students, amateurs learning as we go, but with your support, we can transform that vulnerability into a strength and create something far bigger than ourselves: a haunting, tender film we’ll carry with pride, and one that stays with audiences long after the credits fade.

Cinematographer:

My name is Milad Asadi and I’m the cinematographer for Peach Milk. To me, peach milk reminds me of small, intimate moments that carry a lot of memory and emotion. I chose to work on this project because the story is raw, honest, and challenges me to capture the emotions and depth of the characters visually.

Producer:

My name is Nguyen Bac Binh Nguyen, and I’m the producer of Peach Milk. For me, producing isn’t just about logistics or schedules  it’s about building the world where a story can breathe. Peach Milk drew me in because it lives in the space between grief and tenderness, where memory becomes both a wound and a comfort.

I carry my own history of absence and longing, of family moments missed and love felt across distance. When I read this script, I recognized that ache  the way love can persist even when someone is no longer there. That persistence is what made me want to protect this story, to give it the care and structure it needs to flourish.

Producing a film like this is never easy. People sometimes ask, “Why take on something so intimate, so fragile?” My answer is simple: because intimacy and fragility are what make cinema powerful. It’s in those cracks that truth seeps through. As a producer, my vision is to hold space for the creative risks, to guide the chaos toward something cohesive, and to ensure that every ounce of honesty on the page finds its way onto the screen.

We are still students, still learning, but that vulnerability is also our strength. With the right support, we can transform this small story into something resonant a film that lingers quietly, like the taste of peach milk, long after the lights come up and the audience leaves the theatre

We’re students, so our crew are all working unpaid (the glamour of film school, right?). But even if no one’s cashing in, we still need koha to make the magic happen:

• Feeding the Crew – Hungry filmmakers don’t make poetic cinema.
• Locations – Mara’s ritual deserves more than a flatmate’s lounge.
• Props & Set Dressing – The cake, the candle, the glass of peach milk… the small details that carry the whole story.
• Costume & Makeup – To bring Mara’s world to life with care and accuracy.
• Koha for our Actors – They’re giving us their heart and soul; the least we can do is give back with gratitude.
  Post-Production – Editing, colour, and sound to polish it so it looks ready for festivals, not just student YouTube.
• Festival entry fees - Getting the film seen in Aotearoa and beyond.

With Peach Milk, we are telling the story of a trans mother who abandoned her child - not out of lack of love, but out of survival in a world that gave her no place to belong. Every year, she keeps that love alive through a ritual: a birthday cake, a candle, and a glass of peach milk for the child she lost. Like many trans women, Mara faced a world that denied her safety, dignity, and belonging. Her abandonment was born from that struggle, but her love never disappeared. Every year she keeps it alive through a fragile ritual: a birthday cake, a candle, and a glass of peach milk for the child she cannot reach.

We are making this film because her story is one of resilience, and because love comes in many forms - messy, fragile, imperfect, but never less real. Too often, stories like hers remain untold; Peach Milk is our way of giving them a voice.

Peach Milk is more than a student film; it is a story we have rarely seen. At its heart is Mara, a trans mother who abandoned her child not out of a lack of love, but because survival gave her no choice. Each year, she keeps that love alive with a quiet ritual: a cake, a candle, and a glass of peach milk. It is a story of resilience, of motherhood in all its forms, and of love that endures even in absence.

As two Vietnamese and one Iranian filmmakers, we carry with us the perspective of outsiders - people who know what it means to live between cultures, to hold on to rituals across distance, and to find strength in vulnerability. And as young storytellers, we believe it is our responsibility to use cinema not just to entertain, but to give space to voices too often silenced.

To support Peach Milk is to support trans lives and the wider LGBTQ+ community on screen, thoughtfully and respectfully. There’s more LGBTQ+ screen time today, but representation isn’t the same as resonance. Peach Milk aims for the latter. It also means backing young filmmakers determined to take risks, to make work that is raw, poetic, and unafraid of imperfection. And most of all, it means helping us graduate with something from our uni years we’re actually proud of (y’know, besides our student loans).