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I Am Still Me - Documentary

《我还是我》/ I Am Still Me: A Minjae Lee Story is a feature-length documentary directed by Julian Reyes and produced by Kayla Rossi through Resonance Films, their disability-centered production company. The film follows Minjae Lee, a Korean-Chinese pianist and young husband living with spastic cerebral palsy, Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome, POTS, and global developmental delays, as he navigates daily life, marriage, music, and the relentless physical realities of his conditions. The documentary premiered on March 20, 2037, at an art-house theater in Los Angeles and was subsequently picked up by PBS for streaming distribution.

The title is drawn directly from Minjae's own words. During filming, when asked whether the crew should edit out scenes of his pain, seizures, and physical struggles, Jae responded in Mandarin: "Don't cut the hard parts. They're me too. That's still me." The English rendering of this phrase--"I am still me"--became the film's title, a declaration of identity and wholeness that anchors the documentary's central argument: that disability is not erasure.

Overview

The documentary is narrated by Julian Reyes himself, whose low, intimate voiceover guides the viewer through Minjae's world without interpreting or editorializing. The camera work is deliberately restrained--handheld when necessary, static when the moment requires patience, and always respectful of its subject. Julian and Kayla approached their filmmaking with what critics later described as "reverence rather than voyeurism," allowing the lens to linger, listen, and wait rather than intrude.

The film covers a period of several months in Minjae's life, including his daily routines, his relationship with his wife Minh, his music, his family, and the physical reality of living with multiple severe disabilities. It does not shy away from difficult moments--seizures, CP flare-ups, exhaustion, pain--but it balances these with scenes of joy, humor, love, and determination that present Minjae as a complete person rather than an object of pity or inspiration.

The majority of Minjae's dialogue in the film is in Mandarin, subtitled throughout. His speech is slow, halting, and slurred, reflecting his developmental delays and the physical effort speaking requires. In occasional moments of emotional intensity, he reaches for English, producing brief, devastating phrases like "I still me" and "Minh is more beautiful" that land with quiet power precisely because of the effort behind them.

Creation and Development

The documentary originated in the aftermath of Minjae and Minh's wedding in fall 2035, when Charlie Rivera's social media post featuring candid wedding photos went viral, sparking both widespread celebration and deeply ableist commentary. The resulting firestorm--amplified by powerful response posts from Minh Tran and Minseo Lee--brought Minjae's story to a far wider audience. Julian, who had founded Resonance Films specifically to tell authentic disability stories, connected with the Lee family through the broader network surrounding CRATB and the Fifth Bar Collective. When the family was approached, Joon initially refused, fearing exploitation, but Minseo insisted they ask Jae himself. Minjae agreed on one condition: "Only if they show my music. Not just sick me. Music." From the beginning, Julian was committed to making a film that honored Minjae's full humanity--not just his talent or his suffering, but the entirety of who he was.

Filming took place at the Lee family home in Baltimore, Maryland, over the course of multiple visits. The small crew--primarily Julian behind the camera and Kayla managing field coordination--worked around Minjae's health, scheduling shoots on days when he was stable enough to participate and pulling back when his body demanded rest. The process was emotionally grueling for the entire team, particularly on days when Jae's conditions were at their worst. Minjae became deeply attached to the crew during filming, calling them his "movie friends" and asking every morning when they were coming. He resisted naps and rest on filming days because he wanted to stay with them, fighting exhaustion with slurred protests. When filming wrapped, the realization that his movie friends were leaving broke him--he sobbed openly, begging them to stay, until Julian knelt beside his chair and promised: "You're in the movie now. Forever. We won't forget you." Julian offered to stay in touch and visit when he could, and the bond between filmmaker and subject became one of the documentary's most quietly significant legacies.

Julian edited the documentary himself, a process that consumed months of intense, hyperfocused work. His own chronic conditions--focal epilepsy, cyclic vomiting syndrome, and chronic migraines--meant that the editing process was frequently interrupted by his own health crises. Kayla often had to physically close his laptop to force him to stop. The final cut was completed during a period when Julian was recovering from a CVS episode, and the approval email from PBS arrived while he was asleep on their couch after days of relentless nausea.

Contributors and Key Figures

Julian Reyes

Julian served as director, editor, and narrator. His lived experience with disability--epilepsy, chronic illness, and suspected neurodivergence--informed every creative decision, from the camera placement to the narration style to the ethical framework governing what footage to include. His narration is low, intimate, and often audibly emotional, with his characteristic hoarseness deepening during the most difficult sequences.

Kayla Rossi

Kayla served as producer and field coordinator. She was the first point of contact for the Lee family, building the trust that allowed filming to proceed. During production, she managed logistics, interfaced with the family, and served as the team's emotional barometer. Her role extended to social media and marketing, where she shaped the public narrative around the film with careful attention to ethical representation.

Minjae Lee

Minjae is credited as the film's subject and as a composer, with several excerpts from his album providing the documentary's musical score. His insistence that the filmmakers not edit out the painful moments--"Don't cut it. That's me."--became the defining creative and ethical principle of the entire project.

Minh Tran

Minh appears throughout the film as Minjae's wife and co-subject. Her steady, loving presence anchors many of the documentary's most powerful scenes, particularly the wedding album sequence and the closing interview.

Notable Scenes

Day of Pain

One of the documentary's most visceral sequences captures a morning when the crew arrived at the Lee home to find Minjae in severe pain from a CP flare-up. He had been in agony since six that morning, wailing and writhing as his muscles spasmed uncontrollably. Julian's narration introduces the footage quietly: "When we arrived that morning, something felt different. I couldn't hear his voice--just sobbing." The scene includes Nari Lee explaining what happened, Minh rocking Jae gently, Minseo Lee managing the crisis with clinical composure, and Logan Weston appearing in footage to provide rapid clinical guidance. The footage was nearly cut from the final edit, but Minjae himself requested that it remain.

Porch Conversation

In a golden-lit late-afternoon scene filmed on the family's porch, Julian and Minjae sit together and discuss why people assume Minjae does not understand things. Minjae's responses are deliberate and insightful: "People think if body is broken, brain is broken. If voice is slow, brain is slow. Not always true." He also addresses inspiration porn directly, mimicking the saccharine tone people use around him and dismissing it as "not real, not seeing me." The scene became one of the documentary's most widely discussed moments.

Wedding Album

A warm, intimate sequence shows Julian and Kayla sitting on the floor across from Minh and Minjae as Jae shows them his wedding photo album with careful reverence. The photos capture the couple's wedding day in soft blush tones and sunlight, and Minjae's commentary is shy but proud: "This my wedding. This me and Minh." The sequence culminates in Jae explaining why he wanted to share these moments: "Not just the pain. Not just when I cry. But this, too. The whole me."

Closing Interview

The documentary closes with Julian and Kayla asking Minjae and Minh what they want for their future and what they hope viewers take from the film. Minjae's final words, spoken directly into the camera with halting certainty, became the film's emotional capstone: "We're not sad story. We are love story. Music story. Fighting story." The screen holds on his face before he adds, in English: "I'm still me."

The credits roll over a montage of candid moments--laughter, care routines, music, hands reaching for each other in the dark--set to one of Minjae's compositions. A final title card reads: "For every disabled kid who was told they were too much or not enough--You are still you. And you are worthy of being seen."

Release and Reception

The documentary premiered on March 20, 2037, at a converted art-house theater in Los Angeles. The marquee read the film's full bilingual title, and the sidewalk was filled with critics, disability activists, musicians, journalists, and friends. Minjae was unable to attend in person due to illness, but Minseo Lee arranged a livestream so that he, Minh, and the family could watch from Baltimore. The audience gave a standing ovation, and Minjae, barely awake on the livestream, waved and blew Julian and Kayla a kiss.

Critical Reception

The documentary received overwhelmingly positive critical response. ''Indie Film Weekly'' gave it five stars, calling it "a masterclass in vulnerability" and "a necessary corrective" to sanitized disability narratives. The reviewer praised Julian's "intentional quiet filmmaking" and noted that the film "trusts you to bear witness--and trusts Minjae to lead the way."

Not all reviews were favorable. ''DocuWatch'' gave the film two stars, questioning whether the inclusion of raw footage of Minjae's pain constituted exploitation and implying--incorrectly--that Minjae's father Joon-Ho Lee had not fully supported the project. The review described the film as "not cinematic" and "more like a video diary than a documentary feature." The piece drew significant backlash from disabled viewers, disability advocates, and the film community. Kayla responded directly in the comments: "You're wrong about Joon. And you're wrong about Julian. But that's fine. You weren't listening anyway." Logan Weston, commenting under his verified account, called the review "staggeringly out of touch."

Audience Response

The documentary's impact was particularly profound within disability communities. In a private Facebook group for parents of children with Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome, the film generated extensive, emotional discussion. Parents described seeing their own children reflected in Minjae for the first time. One mother wrote: "No one has ever shown our kids like this. Not in the messy, beautiful, real way. Not without a narrator pitying them." Another mother's honest question about whether her nonverbal son could understand marriage the way Minjae seemed to prompted a thread of supportive responses that affirmed the spectrum of love and connection.

The film also prompted Minh Tran to write a widely shared essay titled "What It's Like Having a Husband Who's Considered 'Developmentally Delayed,'" which challenged assumptions about disabled people's capacity for love and partnership. The essay was published and became a companion piece to the documentary's themes.

Themes and Aesthetic

The documentary's central themes include the right of disabled people to be seen in their fullness, the difference between authentic representation and inspiration porn, the capacity for love and partnership that exists regardless of cognitive ability, and the ethical responsibilities of telling someone else's story.

Julian's narration style--quiet, uncertain, audibly moved--positions the filmmaker not as an authority but as a witness. The camera is never invasive. It lingers, listens, and waits. The aesthetic is deliberately unpolished in places, with handheld footage and ambient sound creating intimacy rather than spectacle. The musical score draws from Minjae's own compositions, their spare, aching beauty providing emotional texture without manipulation.

Legacy and Influence

The documentary's impact extended beyond film criticism into disability advocacy, medical education, and public understanding of intellectual disability and chronic illness. The LGS parent community's embrace of the film connected families who had previously felt isolated, and the friendship between Minjae and Caleb Ross--which began after Caleb's mother saw the film and reached out to the Lee family--stands as one of the documentary's most tangible legacies.

The film established Resonance Films as a significant voice in disability-centered filmmaking and cemented Julian Reyes's reputation as a director of uncommon empathy and ethical rigor.

Media Documentaries 2037 Julian Reyes Minjae Lee Resonance Films Disability Representation