In Slanted, Amy Wang’s audacious feature directorial debut, Shirley Chen plays a Chinese-American high school senior desperate to win Prom Queen, who takes an unsettling route to popularity by undergoing an experimental racial transformation procedure.
Following the surgery, McKenna Grace takes over as Joan’s white-appearing alter ego, and the story twists into a disturbing and thought-provoking journey about identity and acceptance.
Also starring in the film are Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Amelie Zilber, Fang Du, and Vivian Wu.
Slanted premiered at the 2025 South by Southwest (SXSW) Film & TV Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Award in the Narrative Feature Competition. Beyond SXSW, Slanted also screened at the 43rd Torino Film Festival and served as the opening night film of the 48th Asian American International Film Festival in New York. It is set for its U.S. theatrical release on March 13, 2026, in cinemas nationwide via Bleecker Street.
In the film, blending sharp satire, sci-fi, and body horror, Joan Huang, a Chinese-American high schooler, undergoes experimental ethnic modification surgery to appear white in hopes of being voted Prom Queen. After the surgery, her life is upended by her new appearance. Set in a heightened version of American teen culture, the film uses this surreal premise to explore social acceptance, internalized racism, and the absurd lengths someone might go to feel “normal” in a world that prizes certain appearances over others.
In a review from Cinema Daily US, the film was praised for how it “uses body horror to mock white ethnocentrism.” Reviewer Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi graded the film a “B”, writing, “Wang rides the wave of films exploring self-acceptance through bodily transformations, just like the film Emilia Perez did, by focusing on gender reassignment to portray how identity can be reshaped from the inside out.”
Watch the official trailer for Slanted above.
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