Slamdance - One-minded
Shenanigans occur in an apartment shared by two Korean women as one of them brings home a man that she picked up in a club and two thieves invade the place. Meanwhile, a fan oscillates and observes.
Interview with Writer/Director/Producer Forest Ian Etsler & Sébastien Simon
Watch One-Minded on Prime Video and Sofy.tv
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
Sébastien: In the spring of 2014, Forest and I had completed our first co-directing work, a documentary short film titled "The Urban Suite", and in the summer we were already looking for ideas to expand our collaboration in narrative films. "One-minded" quickly came about as a controlable project that we could film entirely in Forest's apartment in Seoul. It was born out of the simple observation that, from its position (the same as the camera's position in the movie), his oscillating fan actually has a panoramic view of the whole place.
Forest: Sharing a small apartment in crowded Seoul, we came to rely on one small fan for relief from the summer heat. There was one strategic location where to place the fan in order to give a slight breeze to both my and Sébastien’s room. While eating breakfast one morning after a rather hot night, Sébastien nonchalantly mentioned the idea of a long-take anchored film from the point-of-view of an oscillating fan. It was a eureka moment. Before finishing breakfast, we had a camera on a tripod and did our first test shots. That fall, I started an MFA film directing course at Dongguk University and needed to make a film. A few months later "One-minded" was made.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
Sébastien: You can expect to watch a very unusual movie that will both entertain and challenge you by its humourous yet experimental story-telling.
Forest: You should watch this film because its core is a cinematically engaging long-take centered story wrapped in a theatre of the absurd prologue and epilogue with a visually poetic cherry-on-top final shot. You are sure not to have seen anything like.
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
Sébastien: For several months already, I had been fixating on finding a suitable idea for a long-take-based short film. In that regard, "One-minded" purged me of this particular obsession! Regarding personal themes, the set design of the movie became the opportunity to add countless details that enrich this little microcosm and inform on the true nature of the main characters' relationship, like all the images on the bathroom door (in particular, the portrait of famous lesbian couple Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas). However, some other details were completely personal to us, like the picture of Forest's family on the entrance door of the apartment, the cork curtain that Forest had thought of doing for years, or the inversion of the abstract painting on the kitchen wall (which was made as a clue about the project we made next).
Forest: The tension and dialog between the personal and universal is at the heart of the film. With the bulk of the film staying within the apartment of the two female protagonists, we went to great extents to give as much depth and detail to the living space as possible. These two women had lived in Paris together and had a romantic relationship, but now are a bit older and are forced to socialize to life in their maternal country, South Korea. We wanted to give as much life to all those emotions that lie under the surface.
As well, we decided to have the mechanical fan not only be the camera’s point-of-view but actually the film’s dramatic protagonist—insomuch that the fan obtains an enlightened state. To emphasize the universality of enlightenment, we incorporate the narration of the Astavakra Gita (an Indian philosophical text that probes the nature of reality), something that I had personally had a large interest in at that time. In the prologue and epilogue of the film, we had a German-Korean child recite, in imperfect Korean, very lofty Indian philosophy as a voice over. This was to create tension between the universal and the personal.
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development and production?
Sébastien: The final script ended up being a combination of two separate ideas, one about a home invasion and one about a romantic triangle. Throughout the writing process, we scratched our heads quite a lot to avoid clichés in both plots, firstly by ridding the project of any sort of violence that the home invasion might have brought, secondly by twisting expectations with the romantic triangle. Still, the choreography of the comings-and-goings in such a limited place was both the trickiest aspect to write and the most fun to orchestrate on the shooting.
Forest: I would add that one key decision was to give the mechanical fan (the camera) an objective and then a subjective role. After that the mechanical fan became the dramatic protagonist the film, and it went off in its own wild direction. To add to the romantic triangle idea, we wanted very much to have an emotionally touching segment between the two female characters. We labored over that for weeks, and finally came up with the best solution on set. Largely thanks to the actors’ input.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
Sébastien: Since its first festival selection in June 2014, we noticed that the movie generates pretty much the same questions regardless of which countries the screenings would take place in. Especially, the peculiarity of the point-of-view and the change in attitude of the camera at the middle of the film are systematically discussed by the audience. Overall, people always seem to enjoy the playful nature of the movie while also responding to its more conceptual notions, which are the reactions we were hoping to trigger.
Forest: To add, the last shot of the film tends to garner positive feedback. We wanted a poetic punctuation at the end to leave the audience in a place of reflection. Often people comment positively on how the film ends.
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
Sébastien: While feedback was usually very positive, it wasn't surprising or challenging in the sense that it revealed me a hidden layer of the movie. However, it's always fun in Q&A sessions to get an unexpected question on one particular detail or another. I like it when audiences are really on the lookout for our cool Easter eggs.
Forest: We loaded the interior scenes with so much that when people find those small connections it’s very fun. It’s interesting how differently Korean and non-Korean audiences react to the film. Korean audiences are rather quick to point out the structural weakness of the film: why steal the fan? Though not surprising nor challenging, I never heard an audience member ask that question at US film festivals.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
Sébastien: At a time where we didn't really expect this two-year-old movie to garner any more festival selections nor attention anymore, it is a true honour and a much welcome surprise that our movie is invited to join your platform. It makes me hope that this movie keeps defying the one-year odds usually given to short films' festival longevity.
Forest: Like Sébastien said, we are honored and ecstatic to have the film selected to Slamdance and gain interest from your platform. The more people to whom the film reaches, the more people who are positively moved by the film the better. The film has taken a life of its own. May it live long and prosper.
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
Sébastien: In terms of festival selections, this movie has been well-served. Sales-wise, it's also being taken care of by the French Short Film Agency and especially by Daehan Drama, a dynamic London-based distribution company, so in the coming weeks and months we'll see what exactly these options can bring in terms of online visibility, VOD revenues, etc. I'm really curious - although for now still a bit cautious - about this experiment.
Forest: Exposure from journalists is always a good thing—especially for a short film. If the film can go to more festivals, then that’s great. If TV stations would like to buy the film, then that would be a very good thing as well.
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
Sébastien: With the lesbian and bisexual undertones that we wove into the movie, I was really hopeful that it would be selected in LGBTQ festivals and I was looking forward for it, if only because, as straight men, this seemed like a rare opportunity for us to cross an unfamiliar bridge. So far only one such event selected the movie, the 2016 Everybody's Perfect International Queer Film Festival in Geneva, but we were busy in Korea at the time so we weren't able to attend... I still hope that we get another chance.
Forest: More exposure to the LGBTQ community around the world would be an honor. I guess like most filmmakers, I’d like for the film to affect the hearts and/or minds of the audience. To meet people and hear them say ‘I heard so much about your film. I really want to see it’ or ‘I really want to show this movie to my _____’ is really a sacred thing. Whenever a creative work can profoundly resonate with someone then very special things are happening.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?
Sébastien: Are cameras soulful?
Forest: Great answer…hmm…What do we hold sacred ?
Would you like to add anything else?
Sébastien: There is an aspect of making this project which we cared a lot about once it became apparent to us, and it was to avoid the temptation to add violence in order to generate an easy tension. While I actually don't mind it at all in films, comic books or video games, I'm somehow glad that Forest and I have been developing violence-free projects, especially in today's world where violent and hateful acts and speeches seem to be ever-present and so easily and massively fed online.
Oftentimes, Korea is depicted in Korean (short) films as a bottomless pit of pain and misery and, while we recognize it can be a harsh society, it's been enjoyable to go the other route in our work. Also, thank you very much, We Are Moving Stories, for choosing "One-minded" :)
Forest: Thank you We Are Moving Stories for choosing the film! I hope this interview causes many who wouldn’t have the chance to see the film to see it, and I hope that experience is enriching.
What are the key creatives developing or working on now?
Sébastien: From spring 2015 until autumn 2016, Forest and I co-directed another narrative short film, a fable-like road movie infused with Oriental and Western myths titled "The Troubled Troubadour". On all levels, this was the polar opposite of "One-minded", with its almost all-outdoor shooting and its significant VFX work which took months to complete. In December 2016, that movie has begun its festival life, which we hope will be as lengthy as possible. We're now getting back at a documentary project which we put on hold for the "Troubadour" and which should be our first feature-length film.
Forest: Along with our feature documentary project, I’m preparing a feature film script that bridges where I’m from, Indiana, USA with where I am, Korea—through a fictionalization of the rather unknown history of Indiana (USA) gold miners in Korea between 1890-1930. I plan to use this project to apply for Cannes Film Festival’s Cinéfondation residency program, as well as other developmental labs.
Interview: January 2017
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One-minded
Shenanigans occur in an apartment shared by two Korean women as one of them brings home a man that she picked up in a club and two thieves invade the place. Meanwhile, a fan oscillates and observes.
Length: 20 minutes
Director: Forest Ian Etsler & Sébastien Simon
Producer: Forest Ian Etsler & Sébastien Simon
Writer: Forest Ian Etsler & Sébastien Simon
About the writer, director and producer:
A 2005 Fullbright Grantee, Indiana native Forest Ian Etsler (born 1982) got an MFA in film directing at Dongguk University in Seoul in August 2016 and is director of East-Asia programming for the Middle Coast Film Festival in Bloomington, Indiana. Alsace native Sébastien Simon (1983) is a nomadic director and editor and works for several festivals between France and Korea, including the Busan International Short Film Festival and the Rencontres Cinématographiques de Cavaillon.
Contacts: forest.ian.etsler@gmail.com / simonstruous@gmail.com
Key cast: Moon Choi, Yaerin Erin Joo, Jeong Sae-ryoung, Kwak Jin-moo, Ryu Jun-yeol
Looking for (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists): buyers, film festival directors, journalists
Funders: Forest Ian Etsler & Sébastien Simon
Made in association with: Department of Film & Digital Media, Dongguk University