A young Chinese American girl wearing a cobalt blue shirt and crimson red bandana holds a sentient bowl of smiling ramen noodles. Her hair waves in the wind as she gazes in awe at her surroundings. In the background, puffy white clouds billow in the aquamarine sky over the Rocky Mountains and lively green foothills.

Ramen Western

Meloddy Gao 2026 7:55 Min English, Mandarin Chinese English Open Captions United States

A young Chinese American girl sets off to uncover the secrets of the American West with an unexpected sidekick: a sentient bowl of ramen.

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Synopsis

Mabel is a young Chinese American girl living in Chicago’s Chinatown. Unsure of what to write in her “What the American West Means to Me” paper, she sets off on a train with a bowl of sentient ramen to find answers. She traverses through the Rocky Mountains, abandoned ghost towns, until finally arriving in California, only to discover that her ancestors never left. On a journey beyond their wildest dreams, Mabel and her ramen sidekick reimagine what the American West means to them.

Screenings

Queer Asian World Cinema at Oakland Asian Cultural Center

Eight films moving between memory, diaspora, and dream where identity flickers, stretches, and insists on being seen.

Friday, May 22, 6:30 PM - 9:30 PM
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Satellite Screening Queer Asian World Cinema at Oakland Asian Cultural Center

Content Warnings

No content warnings provided

Specific Themes

Asian Families

Credits

Director
Meloddy Gao
Screenwriter
Meloddy Gao
Producer
Hayden Chau, Meloddy Gao 
Executive Producer
Visual Communications
Cast
Vanessa Wang, Xiaoyang Wang, Nick Hahn
Editor
Meloddy Gao 
Composer
Angela Hsieh
Sound Design
Rita Carmona 
Music
Angela Hsieh, Carina Ho, Matthew Torres, Morgan Whitney 

About Filmmaker(s)

Meloddy Gao is a Chinese American filmmaker, multimedia artist, and community organizer. Originally from Indiana, her work is shaped by her experiences growing up as the child of immigrants in the midwest suburbs. Her fascination for discovering humanity and humor in absurdity, along with her colorful visual style, form the foundation of her storytelling. She serves as the Communications Coordinator for the Asian American Documentary Network (A-Doc) and graduated with her MFA in Social Documentation from UC Santa Cruz. She is a 2025-2026 Visual Communications’ Armed with a Camera Fellow, where she is directing an animated film titled RAMEN WESTERN. Meloddy's first film, SWIMMING LESSONS, a documentary about her family’s lost goodbyes, is currently in the festival circuit.

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