During the Toronto Film Festival, Universal Film & Television Journal’s editor, Amir Ganjavie, interviewed Aram Siu Wai Collier the artistic director of Reel Asian Film Festival. What follows is the interview.
Amir Ganjavie, UniversalCinema Magazine (UM): Can you introduce yourself and tell me about your role in your organization?
Aram Siu Wai Collier (AC): Sure. I’m Aram Siu Wai Collier. I’m the artistic director at Reel Asian Film Festival, which is a festival that’s been in Toronto for 27 years. We feature films from Asia, especially works by filmmakers from the Asian diaspora, Asian creatives who live in Canada, America, and all over the world. There is a very big area to cover. The continent of Asia, as well as folks who are in diaspora.
(UM): I know this might be a silly or a difficult question, but do you have any kind of definition of a good movie? A movie that when you watch it, you’re like, “It’s a good movie. It should be at my festival.”?
(AC): You struggle with that as a programmer. You ask what does the film do, what does it say or mean, and then, what does it represent for the organization? You’re just one person, but you’re programming for somewhere; especially from our perspective, we program for our community– the Asian community in Toronto and in Canada. A lot of the time you look at them through that vector, and not your own personal taste. Because it’s not about me as a “curator”, It’s about what the audience wants, and what the audience needs. And those aren’t necessarily the same thing. But I think there’s a certain baseline that we can all agree upon. The film should be in focus, there should be good sound… But I think there are so many factors that we can view it from. What’s good to you may not be good to me. There’s a lot of tension, I think, in that. And that’s something that we wrestle with a lot and we ask ourselves that question a lot.
(UM): Are you looking for a specific kind of movie?
(AC): No. I wouldn’t say we look for any type. I would say, that because people who are in diaspora often are faced with legacies of colonialism, imperialism and racism, stories from these filmmakers, maybe tend towards being about identity in certain ways. So, stories of overcoming past traumas, that kind of thing. But I think that we’re seeing a little bit of change.
I mean, I would say historically that has been kind of what we’ve seen, but that might be changing a little bit. Especially since, as you see, more Asian American and Asian Canadian filmmakers are working in the mainstream, they may tell those stories through genre and through other forms.
(UM): Is there any special region of Asia that you focus more or are you covering all Asia?
(AC): Because Reel Asian has been around for 27 years now, it’s changed over the time, over the courses of the organization. Part of that is to reflect the landscape that’s in Toronto, in terms of other festivals and also what the community is asking for. So, without going too much into the deep history, when Reel Asian started in 1997, it only showed work from East Asians and Southeast Asians, because there were other organizations that supported and showed work by South Asian artists.
In subsequent years, some of those organizations fell off and some of them ceased to operate. And so, about 10 years ago, Reel Asian started incorporating South Asian filmmakers and South Asian community within the selection. Then, in the last handful of years, there’s no exact year, but we had more interest and engagement with West Asian and Central Asian filmmakers, who have expressed that they want to be part of Reel Asian as well. And so, we have more programming from filmmakers who have cultural heritage and history from those regions as well.
Essentially, like I mentioned in the beginning, it’s basically the entire continent, which I think is good in that we’re trying to make it an inclusive space. Like, if we can build this community of people who identify as Asian – and obviously there’s lots of tied history, and then there’s also a lot of history and cultures that are very different. But, if we can build a community where people show up for each other, support each other, collaborate with each other, that’s what we’re interested in. It’s about being responsive to those communities who want to be part of this. If that’s the case, then we want them to be here as well.
I think that doesn’t necessarily come easy. There may be some folks who struggle with the idea. I think in Canada, the idea of “Asian” means a certain thing, but we’re trying to push that definition of what that means, that it’s not just strictly related to what region your family is from. Then, in the UK, “Asian” means something else. Those are designations that are based in history and colonialism. So, we’re just trying to break free of that a little bit.
(UM): And how is the selection process in your festival?
(AC): We have a team of programmers. For example I have some programmers that I work with, who do international and regional based films. Then, we have a short film programmer. We have a programmer who does off-screen installation media arts. (And that’s a bit case by case, but we do have a section where we do feature non single channel work.)
Then, we have screening committees because we get a lot of submissions and we try to give every film that gets submitted to us, a proper viewing. In the screening committee, there are people who are filmmakers. They are people from the community. They may be artists in other fields. They may not be artists at all, but they are film fans, and some are film critics. So, the screening committee are trying to be a representation of a larger community. It can be quite challenging at times because there’s a lot of volume and we are a relatively small organization.
I’ve been involved in different capacities since 2007. And back then was like a different universe.
Way back then, if we got 100 submissions, we would be like, “Wow.” And back then, you know, they were on DVDs or whatever. You could watch it as a group with everybody. And now, we have over 1600 submissions and that’s just submissions. There are also films that we actively solicit as well. So, when you talk about those kinds of numbers for a relatively small organization, there’s a lot to manage in a way which is very different from when I started. That’s, I guess, the reflection of changes in production and accessibility.
(UM): One thing that came up during my conversations with other programers was the instability of the job in this filed that made them to move between different organizations. How is this case in your film festival?
(AC): That’s a big challenge in the industry. It’s good that people are talking about that. I think that when I started, that was just kind of accepted as- “Well, that’s the way it is.” In our organization, when I mentioned the programming team, I’m the only one who is full time for the whole year. Everybody else is on contract. So they stitch it together with other jobs. Some of them work at other festivals too and so they piece contracts together.
The precarity of it is definitely a difficult thing. Not only that, year by year, if you’re thinking about how the festival develops, it’s kind of like taste. Maybe taste is a wrong word, but its reputation. You need to have continuity and stability within that programming team. Not only programming, but operations and the leadership, all of that needs to have continuity, so that a festival can kind of get some momentum and gain a certain, I guess, reputation for having a distinct perspective. If you have people cycle in and out all the time, that’s very hard to develop. Then, you’re just kind of doing stuff based on what you’ve done before. I don’t think that makes for, as interesting of a program.
(UM): Do you have any kind of quota?
(AC): No, not exactly. We do try, of course, to have some parity or close to. There are a lot of metrics that we have. I mean, that’s just one metric, gender, but also, we do try to represent enough regions. Of course, if you’re talking about the continent, we only have so many slots for films. There’s no way you can represent everything. I think it’s also less about wanting to make it a buffet table, where there’s one dish from everywhere, and is more about making it like a set menu, where things kind of make sense together. A selection which kind of makes sense from a curatorial perspective.
Then, at the same time, we have a mandate to support Canadian artists. Whatever region they may have their family history from, that’s part of the mandate. It’s really important to us to promote and support Canadian artists.
(UM): And when you are talking about Canadian artists, what percentage of your slot is dedicated to Asian Canadians? And how do you deine an Aisan Canadian?
(AC): There’s no set quota because that’s also year-by-year case. For instance, last year, I think we may have had about eight out of 20 features that were Canadian, which was very high. Again, if we’re talking about when I started in 2007, it would be hard to find one or two. So it’s a good thing to have, right?
In terms of how we’ve defined it, essentially, we’re trying not to go by regional definitions, it’s more about self-identification. Again, if they identify as Asian and they’re the creative driving force behind the film, then that’s the criteria that we start with.
(UM): Do you get supported by government or is it mostly through private sponsorship?
(AC): For a lot of organizations, arts organizations in Canada, it is a mixture. So, it will be some public support and it will be some corporate support. There may be some private donations, but that’s usually not very high. It’s a mix of all those. And year-by-year, that mixture and percentage changes.
(UM): In Germany right now, the Minister of Culture is deciding about the structure of the festival as the festival is funded by the goverment. So, if they want, they can remove the artistic director or keep it. I’m curious to know that when the government in Canada supports an organization, do they interfere in any way, in the organization/management of your festival?
(AC): Well, I’ll say I’m lucky as an artistic director. I don’t have to deal with the sponsorship and fund-raising too much. In that respect, I think that’s probably reflective that because I don’t have to worry about that, that shows there’s a relative distance, from at least the public funders.
So I haven’t dealt with too much interference that you’re referring to, which I’ve also heard in other countries as well, happens very frequently. There may be things where they’re not directly influencing you. Let’s say, just as an example, you had a certain corporate sponsor who has a certain perspective or represents a certain region. Then, you wouldn’t program a certain type of film that maybe deals with certain issues or maybe even a genre. Maybe, they want to support family films, so you wouldn’t go ahead and program a bloody zombie movie, right? You know already ahead of time the kind of parameters that are being set.
I would say, in a broad sense, that doesn’t influence our programming decision. In that respect, it’s quite liberating. And it becomes more about observing, reacting and projecting what people will come to rather than it being dictated from someone else.
(UM): One of the struggles of many festival are the venues they work with. I was wonderinf how is the situation in your case?
(AC): It’s expensive. Over the years, it’s always been a struggle. Since 2019 or 2018, we started using the Lightbox which is not cheap. It’s not a venue that we control, so there are parameters we have to fit within. It’s not only the cost but it’s also like how do you fit within this larger space, within this larger organization that has a really big brand name, but you’re this small festival. It’s not only the cost, it’s also these other factors like, can you get your sponsors in there? Do they conflict with the sponsors of the venue? Those are the things that you have to take into consideration.
The venues that fit the capacity that we need and offer us the flexibility are hard to find. The venues that we know people will come to, can drive to, can park around, or can take the transit to. There are a lot of festivals in this town, so you have to book a year in advance and you hope you raise enough money to afford it.
That said, we do have our own micro-cinema multi-use space, that we have used for public screenings in the past. We haven’t used it really since COVID, but we used to use it. We only had that space accessible to us about two years ago pre-COVID. That is something that I’m looking to reactivate possibly as a year-round programming space for us. Because that is a space that we can control and it comes at a very low cost to us.
So, resources are a huge thing. Every festival deals with that, for sure.
(UM): When it comes to the question of politics, in some of the Asian countries, there are bloody politics involved. We see that there are dictatorships. I’m just wondering if those situation have impact on your film selection process?
(AC): I don’t think we’re picking regime films! In any of these countries, we really try to focus on the artist and what the artist is trying to express. The artist’s voice is behind this and that’s what’s driving it. It is not dictated from somewhere else, just like we wouldn’t want that to be dictated for us. I think a lot of filmmakers are working under extreme pressures from governments and censorship and that kind of thing, and they find a way to tell their stories.
Ultimately, it is about focusing on the artists and their voice. Also, thinking about what the community might want to see from that artist and from that region, as well.
(UM): And when you try to promote a film, what are the strategies that you use?
(AC): That’s really hard actually. If I use the kind of buffet or food menu analogy again, it’s very hard for marketing and PR. I find that for marketing and media, that if programming is not distilled into something that’s very easy to understand, then it is kind of like, “What is it?”. So, that is a challenge.
Let’s say, there is a certain ethnic media outlet or sponsor that represents a certain region which you only have one film from, well, in that case, why would they want to support or promote the entire festival? If the whole festival had 80 films from a certain region, then it would be a lot easier to dig their teeth into that and really put their resources behind it, and you understand that for what it is. But again, it kind of goes back to that idea that we’re trying to build this community, maybe one person from one community will show up for another and then likewise.
We’re building this larger awareness and movement of being Asian Canadian, and being engaged with the art that is coming from our community and from around the world towards this larger understanding and larger meaning. That’s the goal. Who knows if it’s attainable but…
(UM): How important is the presence of a star in your festival? Do you invite any stars to your festival?
(AC): We have in the past, but I think less so since I came back in 2019. I’ve been really trying to focus more on the artists and the creative driving force behind the projects. Not that stars aren’t important and certainly people will show up to catch a glimpse of somebody they know, but it can be difficult to get them to come. It can be a little bit more resource intensive. Filmmakers are a little bit more scrappy I think, in a way. They have a different investment in it. Again, that’s not to say the actors don’t, but I think it’s a resource question as well. Because of those factors, it can be a little bit harder for us to bring in talent.
(UM): What was the impact of COVID on the long-term run of your festival?
Aram: Oh yeah, completely. We had two years of online festivals. They were very challenging years in terms of trying to figure out how to do it, and also trying to figure out how to get people to watch. Once you had it online, it was very difficult to gauge engagement. It was very difficult to tell if people were watching. I mean, you have your metrics that you can record at the time, but it was just a very different feeling. For some of us who have been doing this for a long time, it was a big shock.
I think there are some things that are very positive or that we could take some positives away from it, and that is we were able to have our festival available across Canada in that digital era. Other provinces and other cities were able to watch our program. That was like an upshot of it, but we’re not able to have an online portion now just for cost considerations.
I’ll just go back in terms of some of the big things. We were able to meet more filmmakers over recorded calls and have extended conversations. So, there were some good things that came from it but it was very different.
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Have quickly answered 🙂