For big anniversary Vancouver festival goes long with short films
Credit to Author: Dana Gee| Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 19:00:26 +0000
When: Jan. 24-26
Where: Vancity Theatre
Tickets and info:vsff.com
After watching the film The Farewell, Curtis Lum knew he, too, had a family story he wanted to tell.
While director/writer Lulu Wang‘s The Farewell is about a Chinese clan that keeps a big secret from the matriarch, Lum’s film Grandma’s 80th Surprise is a story about a Chinese family sharing information with the matriarch.
The film, which Lum co-wrote and co-directed with his girlfriend Fola Evans-Akingbola, will be part of this year’s Vancouver Short Film Festival. VSFF is a diverse offering of 46 films that do not get lumped into themes, leaving the event as a sort of cinematic tasting menu that is sure to satisfy curious film lovers.
Lum’s 10-minute long film tells the true tale of Curtis (Lum) introducing Ella (Myrasol Martinez) to his grandmother for the first time on the occasion of the grandmother’s 80th birthday lunch.
“Right away from there I knew I wanted to do a film to honour my grandmother, and to share her with the world, but I also wanted to do a film that would make everyone want to immediately call up their mothers or grandmothers and want to give them a big ol’ hug,” said Lum, who splits his time between Vancouver and Los Angeles.
Interestingly, though at first the grandmother as drawn by the Curtis character gives you pause, it becomes clear that Curtis’s concern is how his grandmother will react when she meets Ella and sees that she is black.
In the film Curtis is a nervous wreck who has gone so far as to enlist his mother to talk to the grandmother and break the black ice before they break bread. Other family members fuel Curtis’s anxiety and cause Ella to question what she is about to face.
“I didn’t say she wasn’t racist. I said she wasn’t MAGA racist,” a jittery Curtis says to Ella.
Curtis Lum is the star and co-writer and co-director of the entertaining short film Grandma’s 80th Surprise.
Like a birthday cake, you can cut the tension and angst in this story with a knife but, thankfully, there is a very healthy resolve — a resolve that actually occurred between Lum and his grandmother.
“All this time I thought my grandmother was racist, but in actuality it was all just one big miscommunication,” said Lum.
“This story, for me, was all about celebrating the miscommunication we have inter-generationally, and breaking out of our rigid culture and family tradition and celebrating a breakthrough I had with my grandmother,” added Lum, who is a very busy actor and is also developing projects for his Arrival of the Fittest Entertainment production company.
“Her and I now have a deeper, stronger relationship. I feel like we can talk about anything … Now she is so much more appreciative that I can be open and honest with her and vice versa, which is really nice.”
In the film, the grandmother is played by Vancouver’s Lillian Lim. Lim (Meditation Park), who said she didn’t have to go far for inspiration for her character as her own mother was raised with cultural racism.
“My mom was really like that,” said Lim, adding that she is the middle child with a brother on either side. “She told all three of us when we were growing up that ‘if you marry anybody that is not Chinese, I will disown you.’ ”
Lim, though, reports her mother softened that view as Lim grew older. In fact when she was 29 her mother told it was okay to widen her marriage net.
“At the time, to me, it was an insult. That I was in a desperate place, desperate to be married,” said Lim with a big laugh.
When Lum (who was also in Meditation Park) asked Lim to do his film, Lim was excited but had one request — she wanted her character to speak Toisan (Toisanese), a country village dialect spoken by her own mother.
“That was one of the wishes on my bucket list that I would do a film in Toisan,” said Lim, who is currently working on a Disney + TV series. “So my wish came true. It’s kind of a dying language.”
At its heart, Grandma’s 80th Surprise is a story about love conquering all but that message is delivered through the lens of cultural biases and racism. Topics that are still very fresh today.
“Right now is the perfect time for a story like this,” said Lum, who initially did the film as part of the Mighty Asian Movie Marathon competition. “We still need to talk about these things.”
Lum’s instincts were bang-on, as festival audiences of all cultures and backgrounds have embraced the sweet little movie.
“I was floored and overjoyed by the reaction we have got,” said Lum about the film that premiered at the Vancouver Asian Film Festival in November.
“We were in front of a predominantly Asian audience so I expected it to go over well, but surprisingly a lot of the people that have come up to us, that have stayed around after the screening to talk to us, a lot of them that it resonated with, weren’t even Asian at all. That was what was the most beautiful for me as far as takeaway.”
The film, that has already earned awards at a handful of other festivals, is part of the exciting VSFF 10th anniversary program, a program that has been growing steadily since the festival started. This year organizers had 265 submissions to pick from. That number has doubled from four years ago.
“It’s kind of crazy we are selling out screenings, we have rush lines to every program,” said VSFF co-director Marena Dix.
“I think a lot of people are creating more in the city, and there has been a lot more opportunities for that. We’re just really happy to have a place we can showcase what Vancouver independent talent has to offer.”
Short films are getting a lot more attention thanks to festivals like this, and streaming services and YouTube and Vimeo.
“Our festival is a great place to show what you want to do as a filmmaker and where you want to go as a creator,” said Dix, who works in film and TV post production. “It’s a melting pot of ideas. It’s so fun.”
Those shorts can then become great calling cards for a filmmaker.
“For me, an incredible opportunity to play and learn,” said Lum who has produced two other short films.
“As a producer, what I love about tackling a good short film is that it is easy to get eyeballs on the film.
“To me, a short film is a great opportunity for people to have a chance to watch it and digest it,” added Lum. “People don’t always have 100 minutes to watch a movie.”
The short film is also an important part of building a career and continued professional growth for actors.
“I love doing them,” said Lim, who came to acting later in life.
“For all the other stuff you usually will never get a lead role, never. You’re almost always background when you book anything. But for the short movies you get the lead role or the supporting lead role and, that’s the only way you can showcase yourself as an actor, what you are capable of doing. That’s why I love doing short movies. It’s like a free acting class.”
This year to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the VSFF, the program has been expanded from two to three days. It will open with a special screening of the best picture winners from the last five years of the festival.
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