Seppuku in the Park
Director: Nikko Wisner
Cast:Brian Park, Raquel Undheim
Crew:Writer: Nikko Wisner. Producers: Tiffany Hue, Annie Cui, Alex Treisman, Nikko Wisner. Director of Photography: Cece Chan; Editors: Jillian Price, Nikko Wisner; Composer: Jack Barrera; Production Designer: Rose Shulman-Litwin; Assistant Camera: Maria Raad, Wallace Hallot; Steadicam Op: George Du; Gaffer: Marat Gazizullin; Key Grip: Ethan Langenau; Assistant Director: Nicole Carne; Sound Mixer: Alexa Su; Re-Recording Engineer: Alicia Qian; Intimacy Coordinator: Juju Jaworski; Choreographer: Elizabeth Sugawara; VFX: Jasper Graham; Colorist: Zack Chalmers
Email:nikolaswisner@gmail.com
Synopsis
After a decade of being pigeonholed as an insurance commercial mascot, an obsessive actor must shed his ego or risk being suffocated by his aspirations for the big screen.
About the director
Nikko Wisner is a Japanese American writer, director, and producer based in Brooklyn, New York. Spending his adolescence in the indie rock and skateboarding scenes of Southern California, he often pulls from a spirit of experimentation to imbue dark comedy and surrealism into stories that reconstruct contemporary Asian American experiences.
After graduating from UCLA, Nikko gained further insight into film and TV production through working at United Talent Agency, A24, and Annapurna Pictures. He was awarded as a 2024 fellow of the WGAE Support Staff Program and as a semifinalist for the 2025 Disney Writing Program. The previous short film that Nikko produced, AWIT NATIN, is currently screening at film festivals across the globe. Most recently, Nikko has honed his storytelling instincts in writers rooms for OVERCOMPENSATING (A24), WHEN IN RIO (Amazon), and CRUTCH (CBS) as Writers’ Assistant. He is currently Showrunner’s Assistant on the upcoming A24 series, SUPERFAKES. When he’s not writing, you can find Nikko making music, exploring the Catskills, or binging anime.
Filmmaker's note
When our deepest dreams seem impossible to reach, accepting the limitations of reality can feel unbearable.
With his career confined by a decade of tacky insurance commercials, Andrew Park embodies a messy desperation in pursuit of his unattainable ambitions. However, Andrew’s aspirations aren’t solely “impossible” due to the competitive nature of acting. He’s also grappling with an industry that (until recent years) has only offered diminished and stereotyped roles for Asian Americans. As we watch his pent-up compulsion reach its breaking point, we may find Andrew’s unraveling to be pathetic and laughable, but it contains a severe vulnerability that all of us can painfully relate to.
At its core, Seppuku in the Park dissects the obsession of chasing a seemingly impossible dream. By blending dark comedy with psychological tension, we also examine and subvert the nuances of identity that inherently inform this struggle.
My anxieties serve as the launch pad for the film. While I am incredibly lucky to be working in my dream industry, witnessing the routine constraints placed on AAPI narratives has induced an underlying restlessness in the pursuit of my own ambitions. We hope that you find meaning in our response to this collective unease: a hysterical story of spirit, told by a team of people who refuse to abandon the search for it.