‘Preparation for the Next Life’ Filmmaker Bing Liu on His Narrative Feature Debut and Why a ‘Minding the Gap’ Sequel Is Unlikely

Understandably, Bing Liu is still on cloud nine over his storybook run at the end of the 2010s.

His coming-of-age documentary, Minding the Gap, premiered at 2018’s Sundance Film Festival to universal acclaim, taking home the special jury prize for breakthrough filmmaking. The aforementioned praise would eventually stretch well beyond the festival circuit as the film still holds a perfect mark on Rotten Tomatoes. 2018 would end with the first of several more exclamation points, beginning with former President Barack Obama‘s selection of Liu’s doc as one of his favorite films of 2018.

Then, in 2019, Liu received an Oscar nomination for best documentary, as well as a Peabody Award. Thus, it’s easy to see why he hasn’t lost that surreal feeling in present day.

“I’m still waking up a little bit. It was absolutely insane. This is going to sound weird, but I started a gratitude journal…