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Lily Topples the World – Southern Circuit Film
April 13, 2022 @ 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
| LILY TOPPLES THE WORLD follows 20-year-old sensation Lily Hevesh – the world’s most acclaimed domino toppler and the only girl in her field – as she rises as an artist, role model, and young woman. Filmed for over 3 years across countless cities and featuring appearances by Jimmy Fallon, Katy Perry, Will Smith, YouTuber Casey Neistat, and a steady stream of Gen-Z creators, LILY TOPPLES THE WORLD is a coming-of-age story cloaked within a unique portrait of an artist, a story of how passion and artistry can make dreams come true, and an unlikely American tale of a quiet Chinese adoptee who transforms into a global artistic force with over 1 billion YouTube views. From director Jeremy Workman (The World Before Your Feet) and from executive producer Kelly Marie Tran (Star Wars: The Last Jedi), in her first film in a producing role.
Run time 90 minutes. FREE SCREENING! TICKETS NOT REQUIRED. DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT – Sometime in 2017, I became transfixed by domino toppling videos. There seemed to be a thriving community of incredibly talented Gen-Z artists who had formed a unique community on YouTube creating mind-blowing domino toppling art. When I dug a little deeper, I began noticing that all roads seemed to lead to this one teenage girl with an oddly-named YouTube channel called “Hevesh5.” The Hevesh5 channel had the most beautiful domino art, the most impressive videos, and by far the most YouTube views. I quickly discovered that it was the channel of a young Asian-American teenager named Lily Hevesh. She had nearly 2 million subscribers, and her domino videos had been seen almost a billion times in nearly every country on the planet. It was clear that Lily was the best of the best and without peer. It also was clear that she was the only girl doing this stuff. As I stepped further into Lily’s work, I learned new details about this unique young woman. I discovered that she had been been abandoned as a baby in China, adopted by an American family, and was the only Asian-American growing up in a small town in New Hampshire. I began to see a deeper story about a quiet girl who spoke with her art, a young woman who found confidence and self-assuredness through her craft, and an unlikely global artist who was mastering new platforms to bring her art to 21st century audiences. I soon got to know Lily and found her incredibly inspiring. This led us to decide to take a journey together on the making of a documentary — one that would show her in a completely different light from how she appeared in her own videos. I ended up filming Lily for nearly 3 years. It would begin with Lily’s freshman year at college (and her difficult decision to drop out) and end with her having her face beaming on a toy line at WalMart. In between, I filmed Lily doing her domino art in dozens of cities and multiple countries, watching how a Gen-Z artist navigated the world of YouTube, fame, professionalism, creativity, and commerce. I got to know an incredible young woman – humble, passionate, and determined to blaze her own path. In the end, I discovered a truly inspiring and universal coming-of-age story that touched on adoption, diversity, and our need for basic human connection. It was a story that made me understand that Lily’s delicate domino artwork was something profoundly deep to her and truly a metaphor for how she lived her life. Southern Circuit screenings are funded in part by a grant from South Arts, a regional arts organization, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts. For more information about Southern Circuit and South Arts please visit www.southarts.org/southerncircuit. |
