Excuse Me, Time, Time, Time
by Sahar Golshan
This essay is published as part of the Youth Critics Initiative III, a collaborative mentorship incubator between the 25th Reel Asian Film Festival and TACLA.
Author’s notes: Each fragment in the memoir In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado begins with a title that makes a cultural reference to the idea of the “Dream House”. The headings in this piece are directly influenced by Machado’s titling structure.
Time Capsule as Coming of Age Trope
The time capsules I’m used to seeing portrayed in film and TV get buried into the earth in the dead of night. They are commonly filled with solid items. Content you can tear, wear, and lick. Like ticket stubs from a first concert. A spot-faded jean jacket from a tween fashion store in the neighbourhood mall. A huge, hardly eaten jawbreaker still attached to a stick.
On screen, the iconic time capsule is buried by a group of best friends who gather to say goodbye to childhood as they know it. Decades later, the then-baby archivists meet again in their obscure hometown by a trick of fate. In the present day, they’re virtually unrecognizable adults dressed in business attire. One of them carries a suitcase with disdain.
The group figure that while they’re all in town they might as well meet and dig up that nostalgic time capsule. Because they know they are resurfacing tangible matter, the old friends retrieve their treasure with a shovel. When they finally track down the buried box of memories, they reacquaint themselves with a shared history by using their hands.
I turned on my laptop and spent ten days of time at the 25th Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival. The festival took place from November 10 to 19, 2021. Given that the events were presented in the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the films and panels were offered almost entirely in an online format.
One of the first films I watched was the feature IN BETWEEN GIRL by Mei Makino. It’s a fictive coming-of-age story set on the island of Galveston in Texas. The protagonist, a mixed-race high schooler named Angie, is having a hard time. Her parents, an immigrant man from China and a white American woman, are getting a divorce. Meanwhile, Angie is experiencing her first sexual relationship. She’s become much more than friends with the heartthrob at her high school and he just so happens to have a girlfriend.
It’s quite discreet, but throughout the film, Angie is building a time capsule. Angie records vlogs in her bedroom to send to her future self. She produces elaborate drawings and takes polaroid photos of the people who mark her during this meaningful period of growth.
Time Capsule as Digital Archive
Like Angie, I want to build a time capsule. I want to capture the 25th edition of the Reel Asian Film Festival, but because the festival was offered digitally I don’t have any ticket stubs. For most of the festival, I wore the same baggy t-shirt and cozy pants combo. Due to public health measures, my fellow moviegoers and I didn’t get to debrief the films with each other in the cinema lobby. Instead, I had the quiet digital companionship of my fellow youth critics. We’re a group of Asian cinema appreciators who were brought together via a five-month incubator called the Youth Critics Initiative (YCI): a film critics project run by TACLA. I also felt a silent connection to the brilliant staff who made the festival happen. They are individuals who I have come to know as tremendous community leaders and creative mentors.
This digital time capsule contains text and audio. It’s comprised of my personal reflections and sound bites from five contributors. Two of the interviewees are my fellow YCI members Hannah Polinski and Mathew Gene. The other three are members of the staff team at Reel Asian. They are Kelly Lui, Samir Ballou, and Aram Collier.
(All audio clips have accessible transcription, available here)
This time capsule talks! Listen to Mathew, Kelly, Samir, Hannah, and Aram introduce themselves here.
This time capsule has two main features.
1. It’s, first of all, a showcase of collective memories from the 25th Reel Asian Film Festival.
2. It’s also a collection of reflections on the relationship between time, film, and film festivals.
My prime intention for this digital time capsule is that it be a close listening experience: a form of zooming in on time itself. With this in mind, I am inserting some timestamps of the festival. The inclusion of timestamps is inspired by Jordan Abel’s book NISHGA. Given the digital format of the festival, the time stamps provide some of the specific flavour of the audience experience in November 2021.
When you access a film festival at home, there’s a heightened awareness of time that doesn’t exist in a theatre. At any point in the watching experience, you can hover your mouse over the timeline to see how many minutes remain. Time is louder.
Time Capsule as Retail Therapy
Time comes up over and over again in the film EXCUSE ME, MISS, MISS, MISS by director Sonny Calvento. This short film is a tale of both time scarcity and surplus. Retail customer service worker Vangie is called into her boss Ma’am Choro’s office. Ma’am Choro presses play on her store surveillance monitor. At 01:10:22:07, Vangie is captured slacking off during a shift. There’s footage of Vangie using a shelf of underwear as a couch at 01:06:56:15. Then at 01:08:59:00, Vangie leans her body against a large stand full of bras, right in front of a customer struggling to maneuver a suitcase.
Ma’am Choro on the other hand doesn’t waste a second. She’s a mega multi-tasker who sternly reprimands Vangie in her office while simultaneously breaking a sweat on a stationary bike. Ma’am Choro is furious about Vangie’s work ethic. She tells Vangie that she better watch out: her job is on the line.
Exasperated, Vangie decides to follow Ma’am Choro home. When she spies through her boss’s window, Vangie finds out exactly why Ma’am Choro has enough energy to perform so well at her job. Four Ma’am Choros appear sitting at the dining room table! Ma’am Choro isn’t one person. She’s actually one of four identical women who take turns working while the three others rest up to take on the next shift. “Aaaaaaaah,” Vangie screams. “SHE’S ‘FOUR’! WHAT THE FUCK!”
During the ten days of the festival, I wished I could be four Sahars so that I could consume as much content as possible. Sadly, I don’t have Ma’am Choros powers.
Although I couldn’t make it to all the programming, I was lucky enough to talk to five fellow Reel Asian enthusiasts. I asked all of them what they would put in the time capsule of the 25th Anniversary of the Reel Asian Film Festival.
Time Capsule as Social Distancing
My fellow youth critic Mathew had a self-declared controversial pick for the time capsule.
SEVEN DAYS is a feature-length film directed by Roshan Sethi. Ravi and Rita have been set up on a date by their parents. They meet each other at the exact time the global pandemic is declared. Unexpectedly, the unlikely pair are forced to quarantine together.
I found myself seeking escape in the programming I consumed at the festival. I chose to watch films that could transport me to another time completely.
Time Capsule as Dear Diary
Youth critic Hannah Polinski, who I talked to while a gentle alarm intermittently chirped in the background, opted for a more physical item to place in the time capsule.
Time Capsule as Telling Tall Tales
In its 25th iteration, the Reel Asian International Film Festival featured 68 shorts and 20 feature-length films. Despite the higher volume of shorts at Reel Asian, my sense is that audiences at most film festivals favour features.
Am I imagining this phenomenon? I had to ask Kelly Lui, the shorts programmer of the 25th RAFF. She’s been in the role for over four years. Not a short time at all.
Kelly’s anecdote reminds me of my experience taking part in Reel Asian’s Unsung Voices program in 2019. I was supported by the festival to make a short film that year. When I invited one of my uncles, he expressed how excited he was to hear about the project. When he found out the film was a short, he said, “Only 8 minutes? I thought you made a real movie.”
Why is the feature the revered format of film, privileged for telling a story that is 40 minutes or longer? Have Hollywood blockbusters cemented this hierarchy? Due to financial constraints, the short film is typically the medium emerging filmmakers take on, with a feature-length project being the long-term career goal.
Of course, less minutes do not mean less quality. EXCUSE ME MISS, MISS, MISS illustrates this in sixteen. The film is a joyful critique of the debilitating and delusional expectations of capitalist economic structures, not unlike the film and media industry itself.
Time Capsule as Starving Artist
During the panel on “Sustainable Storytelling Careers” that streamed live on Thursday, November 18 at 4:30 pm, Sherren Lee talked about the fact that having enough time to create means having enough money to create. At 1:03:30, Sherren talked about temping, working in different offices, and at a stationery store “to make ends meet” as a filmmaker.
It seems like you need four separate bodies to survive in the media industry. You first need a body to work your full-time job to pay for living expenses. Body #2 comes into the picture in order to take on unpaid and underpaid creative work to gain experience that will help you enter the industry in a meaningful way. A third body is good to have handy if you want to achieve a healthy lifestyle in an industry that demands long hours. Use this body to reserve time to spend with family and friends. Don’t forget #selfcare! A fourth body is necessary so that you have time to sleep. To quote the endearing short film character Vangie, “What the fuck!”
Evidently, the industry as it’s currently set up does not fairly compensate artists. And in addition to creators lacking sustainable income, many are overwhelmingly time-poor.
Time Capsule as Time Travel
Although it’s nowhere close to justice, art itself has the power to nourish with its profound beauty. I’m particularly struck by the artistry of the films at the 25th festival that were fun, and experimental. Many literally played with time.
Youth Critic Mathew had one film at the top of his mind when it came to time.
Time Capsule as Soundtrack to Dirty Dancing [“(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life”]
Reel Asian Head Programmer Aram facilitated a question and answer session with Junta Yamaguchi: director of BEYOND THE INFINITE TWO MINUTES. During their conversation, Yamaguchi said he watches a film that changes his life every year.
This is what makes the annual film festival such a treat. We come back year after year because the movies move us.
I’ve felt this way for a long time. When I was an undergraduate student, I’d take advantage of the free tickets that the local documentary film festival provided to students before 6 p.m. I’d go almost every day. The films that I’ve watched at film festivals have stayed with me. Years have passed, but I have visceral memory of sitting in the audience watching 12th AND DELAWARE at Hot Docs in 2010, MY STOLEN REVOLUTION at the 2015 Diaspora Film Festival, and YELLOW ROSE at Reel Asian in 2019.
Time Capsule as Limited Edition
At a film festival, you can be one of the first set of eyes on a film. You can catch an independent film that might never attain distribution. There is urgency. You have to watch it now, at a specific time and place.
After all, film is time. It is it. It’s literally comprised of the equation i x t. Image over time.
That’s one of the reasons the film BEYOND THE INFINITE TWO MINUTES is so daring to me. It explodes the concept of cinematic time and makes it the entire playful premise of the story.
Time Capsule as Press Play
In actuality, all film and particularly the very edited nature of film is a play on time. In DAMASCUS DREAMS, filmmaker Émilie Serri juxtaposes scenes of her childhood in Quebec in the 1980s with the total destruction of buildings and human life in the Syrian city of Dasmascus in the last decade. This wide timeline is completely contracted into an 84-minute documentary.
Aram spoke with Émilie Serri about a core element that spurred the creation of the film.
Time Capsule as “Under Pressure”
Creating a time capsule of a film festival that explores the concept of time itself leads me to consider the concentrated duration of a festival. With only one body and no capacity to travel in time, I felt overwhelmed by all the conversations and films that were available to me in less than two weeks. I felt the pressure of time.
I was made acutely aware of the economic privilege of obtaining tickets or a pass to a film festival, and then possessing the time to attend various film festival offerings considering the demands of paid work, caregiving, and the need to rest.
Festival programmers themselves are similarly burned out. With many film festivals existing as registered charities, much time is devoted to fundraising for government grants and corporate sponsorships. While a lot of the labour of the logistics and programming of a festival is rendered invisible to an audience member (especially in an online format), staff generally work without days off during the roll-out of a festival.
Time Capsule as Questioning Business As Usual
On the sixth day of the festival, a panel on the Function of the Festival in Crisis was offered. It was the second year in a row that a conversation on this topic was presented. At 27:21, Sean Lee talked about “moving away from the festival model” as it currently exists, particularly in the context of disability arts.
What are the consequences of the non-stop nature of a film festival on both disabled and abled bodies?
How can film festivals facilitate physical and digital spaces that better support the truly accessible participation of both their staff and audience members?
Renegotiating the festival’s relationship to time is integral to begin to answer these questions. Integrating breaks and leisure, and ensuring the availability of closed captioning and ASL interpretation is only the beginning.
Samir Ballou, Industry and Education Programmer at Reel Asian, speaks to the importance of championing all community-based film festivals and thinking about offerings that go outside of the ten-day time frame.
Time Capsule as “Festival” Time
I watched the recording of the live discussion called “Centrepiece Spotlight on Hawai’i” on one of the last days of the festival. The conversation featured the director of WAIKIKI, Christopher Kahunahana and the director of I WAS A SIMPLE MAN, Christopher Makoto Yogi. Chris K said, “Film has the ability to mess with time.” He speaks about the distinction between “real time” and “Kea time”. Kea is the main character of his feature-length film WAIKIKI. Kea has three demanding jobs. Despite this, she becomes houseless on her own land.
Thinking about “Kea time” makes me think of “Angie time” and “Ma’am Choro time” and “INFINITE TWO MINUTES time”. It challenges me to think of each one of these films as invitations to wear a different watch. To operate at a different speed in cinematic time.
Time Capsule as It Takes a Village
Reel Asian shorts programmer Kelly put some large (and live!) items into the archive.
This important recognition of the 2021 short programming committee reminds me of all the people who haven’t contributed to the time capsule. How the time I needed to create this piece, and the time I needed to rest while creating it, was a barrier to including more contributors.
Time Capsule as Precedence
I’m thinking particularly of the Desh Pardesh Retrospections Panel, aptly featured under the banner of “Absence | Presence”. The centrality of time as a theme of this conversation cannot be overstated. Reel Asian Programmer and Community Outreach staff Mariam Zaidi led the production of the panel which featured Anju Gogia, Amita Handa, Sudarshan Durayappah, and Shelly Bahl. The panelists were core festival staff of Desh Pardesh: interdisciplinary arts and politics run by and for the South Asian diaspora in Toronto from the last 1980s to 2001.
Samir spoke to me about this monumental panel and the impact of Desh Pardesh today.
Time Capsule as Slow Dancing
The film ISLANDS, directed by Martin Edralin, features a one-minute microwave scene. Like the slow yet seductive nature of the line dancing we see in the movie, this unexpected microwaltz challenges the audience’s conception of cinematic time. It’s fitting as the main character Joshua adjusts to the speed of “grief time” as he adjusts to dramatic shifts in his domestic life.
Time Capsule as “The Feels”
Aram was present in a theatre with other human beings as he watched ISLANDS. It was one of the few live components of the 2021 festival.
He tries to convey the magical feeling he experienced, for inclusion in the festival’s time capsule.
Time Capsule as Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You
There were over 100 offerings available at the 25th Reel Asian Film Festival: from panels, to parties, to films. One of the themes of the 25th Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival was “HERE IN THE FUTURE PAST”. To me, those words demand increasing equitable practices to ensure more sustainable filmmaking moving forward.
Sahar Golshan is a writer, language learner, and the director of the short documentary KAR.
Twitter @SaharGolshan
