Sundance ’17 and on to Rotterdam ‘17: Interview with Kirsten Tan, Writer and Director of ‘Pop Aye’
This first feature of Kirsten Tan premiered in Sundance ‘17 World Cinema Dramatic Competition. Its provenance is Singapore but it takes place in Thailand. It continued onward to the Hivos Tiger Competition at IFFR (R’dam).
The thrill of interviewing here in Sundance is that you see a film; you have an impression and while it is still fresh you meet the filmmakers without having much time for any research or reflection. And then you get to see them again as “old friends” when you meet again in Rotterdam.
As Kirsten, her producer Weijie Lai and I sat down at the Sundance Co-op on Main Street here in Park City, I really had little idea of where the interview would take us, somewhat analogously to her film in which an architect, disenchanted with life in general, being put aside as “old” in his own highly successful architectural firm and in a stale relationship with his wife, by chance bumps into his long-lost elephant on the streets of Bangkok and takes him on a journey across Thailand in search of the village and land where they grew up together.
The encounters and reflections that ensue surprise and delight and bring us to a new understanding of precious moments shared and the swift passing of time.
Immediately after its Sundance screening the reviews were unanimously favorable.
Maggie Lee of Variety says, “Warm yet unsentimental, graced with the lightest touch of surrealism, this opening-night offering from Sundance’s world cinema dramatic competition is a joy…heightened by the involvement of executive producer Anthony Chen (director of Cannes Camera d’Or winner ‘Ilo Ilo’)”
Let’s begin with the business.
Who is the international sales agent?
Cercamon is a sales company based in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates headed by Sébastien Chesneau who is French. Friends recommended it to us.
[Editor: Cercamon is a world sales company launched in 2014, headed by Sébastien Chesneau, a veteran in the film industry with more than 17 years in sales and acquisitions in top companies such as Celluloid Dreams and Rezo. The company works on 6 to 8 films a year. Cercamon celebrated its Jury Prize in Cannes last year with “The High Sun” directed by Dalibor Matanic, an entry for the Academy Awards, which then traveled in over 100 festivals around the world, winning over 25 main prizes, Sundance’s “Dark Night”, directed by Tim Sutton premiering internationally at Venice Film Festival, Out of Competition.
Some of the films Chesneau sold were “Frozen River” (Courtney Hunt), “Camp X-Ray” starring Kristen Stewart, “I Killed My Mother” and “Heartbeats” (Xavier Dolan), “2 Days In Paris” and “2 Days In New York” (Julie Delpy), “About Cherry” (Stephen Elliott), “Bonsai” (Cristian Jimenez), “Honeydripper” (John Sayles), “Hooked” (Adrian Sitaru), “Mademoiselle Chambon” and “A Few Hours Of Spring” (Stéphane Brizé), “The Yes Men Fix The World” (Andy Bichlbaum), “Alexandra” (Alexander Sokurov), “Xingu” (Cao Hamburger), “Abuse Of Weakness” (Catherine Breillat), “The Child” (Dardenne Brothers, Golden Palm Cannes 2005), “The Beat That My Heart Skipped” (Jacques Audiard, Competition Berlin 2005), “Funny Games” (Michael Haneke, Sundance 2007), “I’m Not There” (Todd Haynes, Competition Venice), “Me And You And Everyone We Know” (Miranda July, Winner Sundance 2005), “Nobody Knows” (Kore-Eda Hirokasu, Competition Cannes Film Festival 2004), “Crimson Gold” (Jafar Panahi, Jury Prize Cannes 2003), “Election” (Johnnie To, Competition Cannes 2005), “Goodbye Bafana” (Bille August, Competition Berlin 2007), “Factotum” (Bent Hamer, Directors’ Fortnight Cannes 2005), “Darwin’s Nightmare” (Hubert Sauper, Venice Film Festival 2004), “The Magic Flute” (Kenneth Branagh, Venice Film Festival 2006), “Savage Grace” (Tom Kalin, Directors’ Fortnight Cannes Film Festival), “Palindromes” (Todd Solondz, Competition Venice 2004), “Kirikou And The Wild Beasts” (Michel Ocelot, Special Presentation Cannes 2005), “Paradise Now” (Hany Abu-Assad, Berlin Film Festival 2005)]
Tell me how this film came to be?
Weijie: “Pop Aye” had lots of traction in development. And lots of sales agents were interested in it since it began with the Berlinale Talents Script Station in 2014.
Kirsten: We met a lot of people there and it was invited from there to TorinoFilmLab where we had a great experience. We were so surprised when it won The Production Award there.
Weijie: We had no idea it might actually win and I had already left when we heard we won. Kirsten called me and I was standing in line for the plane.
Kirsten: It won US$75,000 which really propelled it forward.
Then it was invited to the Cannes Atelier which gave us even more impetus. We had lots of attention by then.
Weijei: The Singapore Film Commission put in production money from a fund it has for first time filmmakers called The New Talent Feature Grant.
Kirsten: By that time, we were just “riding the beast”. It had taken on a life of its own.
Why do you think it was such a hit?
Kirsten: Well it is a unique story and has a specificity of time and place to it. And I was not just milking the elephant as a story.
I was trying to keep the film authentic and true to life in Thailand with a particular sensibility which makes it unique.
I loved the people he meets along the way. Each one, even if playing a very small part, like the Buddhist priest, is so special. The beggar at the gas station was really wonderful and to learn of his full story was so engaging; I felt such compassion for him.
Kirsten: All the people were people I really met — the beggar, the social outcast, the fortune teller. I lived in Thailand two years and met these people there.
I thought you were Thai since the film was all about Thailand. In fact I wanted to see this film because I have a cousin in Thailand who owns two elephants. They were abused and are now in shelters.
Are you in fact from Singapore?
Kirsten: Yes I l am originally from Singapore. I lived for a year in Korea and in Thailand for two years and in New York for nine years, and I still live there.
Weijei: I am also from Singapore and we were undergrads together.
So that’s how you know each other…
Weijei: Yes after film school in Thailand, we stayed in touch over the years. I stayed in Singapore where I was producing. She sent me a message when she was doing her NYU thesis film, a short…writing a message, “how are you” usually means something is up, and it was her short. I worked with her on that film. We liked working together and so we went straight from that to this film.
[Editor: Since 2011, Weijie has produced seven films: “Pop Aye”, 2016 “Bronx Lives” (Documentary), 2016 “Distance” (segment producer), 2014 “Granny” (Kirsten’s thesis short which won a student grant from the USA National Board of Review and the Silver Screen Award from the Singapore Film Festival for Best Southeast Asian Short Film and was about an elderly widow who finds an unexpected visitor, a young asylum-seeking girl, in her home during dinner. Inspired by a 2012 event, whereby 40 Burmese Rohingya asylum seekers arrived in the port of Singapore.). He also worked on 2013 film “That Girl in Pinafore” as coproducer, 2011's “I Have Loved” as co-director, and producer and 2011’s ”Homecoming” as coproducer). ]
Weijei: The executive producer, Anthony Chen is also our friend from film school in Singapore. He is also a director and directed the Cannes Camera d’Or film “Ilo Ilo”. He went on to National Film and Television School and Kirsten went on to NYU Tisch School of the Arts. I also went to NYU Tisch School of the Arts Asia in Singapore before it closed.
Have you received offers for U.S. distribution?
Weijei: Yes we have a couple of offers we are considering. Sebastian is here making deals.
[Note: Kino Lorber now has US rights for the film]
Is the short film — your thesis film — related to this film in any way?
Kirsten: The two correlate in tone and style though their narratives are different. I like strange things, a bit off kilter. All my shorts have this quality. But, In fact my short film “Sink” was the genesis of the idea for this film. “Sink” is about the relationship of a boy with a sink in the middle of the ocean. When we’re young we give so much more to the moment. With the rising of the ocean the sink went lower and lower into the ocean until it disappeared. It was about the world in the sink and its memory when the man was old and the sink gone: time plays a strong part in all my films.
When we were filming “Sink”, I watched a group of young boys bathe with an elephant at the beach. They played with such pure joy that I felt such a loss as I watched. I realized I could never go back to that moment. Today, as adults, we hold ourselves back more. The power of that image stayed with me.
You could almost feel it when the man takes the elephant into the water and they begin to play and you see him as a boy playing with him in the sea.
In fact, the way you cut the film, I was not sure it was a flashback, but rather where he was going with the elephant…when you showed the children in the little village watching the television with Popeye on it. I thought he was returning to that village, but when he does find his uncle who still lives there, he discovers the uncle has a new family and they all live in a high rise apartment, that he sold the land …
Kirsten: There is no going back to those moments and so we must cherish them when we have them.
Have you made many shorts?
Kirsten: Yes I’m made six shorts.
So do you think shorts are very important for filmmakers?
Kirsten: Yes, they are very important. They allow the filmmaker to experiment on a low stakes level with different styles and genres before committing to a feature which can take one to three years or more even…I experimented a lot making my shorts. I experiment with time especially. While they have this in common, the stories and content are original in each film.
In fact, the way you cut the film, I was not sure it was a flashback, but rather I thought it was where he was going with the elephant…when you showed the children in the little village watching the television with Popeye on it. I thought he was returning to that village, but when he does finally arrive there, he finds his uncle who still lives there has a new family and they all live in a highrise apartment, that he sold the land …
Kirsten: My shorts began with experimental narratives, elements. It was a narrative but the time frame was experimental. At NYU I had a really good writing professor, Mick Casale and he said that “the very nature of cinema presupposes an audience”. This was and is very important to me when I make movies.
Thank you for quoting him. I can use that for when we teach. We always say that the first thing you must think about when you conceive a film is the audience.
Kirsten: Young filmmakers are often making their “own” film without thinking about an audience. I don’t mean you are pandering to an audience, but when I make movies, I feel I am reaching out an invisible hand to my audience saying, “You are there and you are not alone”.
You are very good depicting human nature. The husband and wife who are bored with each other and in fact, don’t like one another, how he is being sidelined by the younger generation in his own firm… when the film opens the man is a boring nondescript sort of man but by the end things have changed even in the relationship with his wife
Kirsten: I like to remind people there are little things in life you have to cherish because time goes by. When he and his wife visit the high-rise that had established his reputation and now is being demolished for a new, larger high-rise, she says that for her, it will never disappear because he built it.
Their moments of happiness can last forever; the trust she had in him, the time he carried her. I am very interested in time in that respect.
You seem very thoughtful and maybe even wise for a young filmmaker.
Kirsten: I feel like I am a very old soul. I think a lot. It is important that filmmakers think a lot about life and existence. And time is very much a part of that. I remember being struck by time in “The Hours” of Michael Cunningham.
You could be living the best time of your life and not know it. When something is good, it could be over in a few hours.
Time is the true final arbiter. Great things go by. So the choice on what your focus is in your life is up to you.
Singapore, at least from what I hear, is very monochromatic, maybe even monotonous and boring. How did you come to think this way?
Kirsten: I come from a very conservative, traditional Chinese family and I grew up with a very small role to play. I read a lot and and I saw lots of films as I felt trapped, but I realized there was a much bigger world outside of my world.
One last question: What about the gunshot? At the very end I heard a gunshot and wondered about if the elephant had been shot.
Kirsten: The gunshot is a sound motif which you hear first when our hero is a child in his village watching the public showing of Popeye. Someone runs and tells everyone the mother elephant had been shot and she had a baby elephant…It repeats throughout the movie and at the end awakes him to that moment when his life changed.
Thank you. I feel we have covered a lot of ground here. In fact I feel you have answered some questions I myself have been struggling with in my own life.
Kirsten: Yes I also feel we have covered a lot of ground.
I am looking forward to seeing you again and to seeing how this film does with its public and toward seeing your next films.
[Editor postscript: Annakeara Stinson and Chris O’Falt of Indiewire asked Sundance filmmakers how the election changed the way they viewed their films and careers. Their answers are as varied as their films.
Kirsten had this response:
Kirsten Tan, “Pop Aye:” It definitely affected my view of filmmaking. I was just thinking the other day that if I were to write a film today, it would likely be a little more politicized, somewhat more urgent, as an instinctual reaction to the rising tide of right wing populism and its deplorable need to drown out minority voices.
WORLD PREMIERE at Sundance 2017 — World Cinema Dramatic Competition
RT: 98min
Singapore
Writer/Director: Kirsten Tan
Producer: Anthony Chen, Weijie Lai
Starring: Thaneth Warakulnukroh, Penpak Sirikul, Bong
Sales Contact: Cercamon
Sebastien Chesneau — sebastien [at] cercamon.biz
