Confluence: A Meditation in Documentary Form
Confluence is a mix of hypnotic images and heartfelt testimonies exploring the turmoil of being othered, while enduring creatively and shattering community and perceptual barriers. The reductive myths unjustly stuck on the Asian American diaspora are directly questioned by those who'd rather choose their own labels — or simply do away with them altogether.
Interview with Director/Producer ETA and Director Shanhuan Manton
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
ETA: I had been organizing an increasingly successful art and music series for AAPI Heritage Month via my not-for-profit project, moonroom, over a 3-year span and had never pursued any kind of formal filming for its showcases. This, and a desire to make something after something of a filmmaking hiatus, spurred me to reach out to Shanhuan on the idea to make a documentary centered on the musicians and their common threads of experience employing a specific aesthetic I had in mind.
SHANHUAN: I’d been crewing on a few films and pieces that were ostensibly about identity, and was inspired to make something portraying a different perspective on identity, coming from an AAPI viewpoint that was grounded in the unique subcultures here in SoCal. As someone who grew up as a mixed, third-culture kid, I’m always looking for more stories that capture the perspective of those of us who’ve had to navigate cultural differences, so when ETA brought up the idea I was immediately on board.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
ETA: As an audience member, you can expect an immersive, healing experience that calms the senses and opens perceptual barriers…
SHANHUAN: with intimate personal histories of diverse and unique AAPI musicians, their musings on identity. You can experience a sense of empowerment in regards to a more empathetic understanding and relationship to notions of identity.
ETA: I like to semi-flippantly tell my friends who are going to view it to play it before/in bed. Apichatpong Weerasethakul is one of Shanhuan and mine’s favorite auteurs and their encouragement that “it’s okay to fall asleep” to their movies is a mantra we internalized when making Confluence.
SHANHUAN: Yeah, if you have any interest in slow cinema, or the liminal spaces that mix dreams and film, or meditation and film… this is right up your alley, or under your pillow, or on that floor between floors where the elevator sometimes stops…
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
ETA: What’s personal is universal, it’s all a mirror, baby. We’re just perpetual babes.
SHANHUAN: Right! The sense of coming into one’s own, the questions you ask as you gain a clearer sense of self, these are perpetual cycles of human existence. While diaspora experiences are unique, everyone can relate to the sense of wanting to find their place in the world.
ETA: We took our own perspective on that, informed by our own experiences - but it ultimately resonates with the universal themes of crafting self and finding community.
SHANHUAN: I think there’s also something special in how our film is in a way a testament to all of the hard work of our ancestors to make the world where these musicians can express their creativity possible.
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?
ETA: We had a generally lucid aesthetic concept, but the process of filming and recording the film continually shaped our approach. It was a fluid process. We were constantly learning and adapting as we gathered more materials.
SHANHUAN: Whether it was our decision to constrain our filming to a single lens and to only use slow motion footage to encourage viewers into deeper attention, or the choice to present the voices as if they were distant transmissions, messages from another realm, the whole process was a practice in exploring the potential of filmmaking to approach a meditative state.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
SHANHUAN: When we initially sent the film out to festivals, the pandemic had just gotten into full swing. As a result, I think a lot of programmers were not in the emotional space to sit still with the more deliberate pace of the film. There were some festivals that we thought would be very welcoming of the film and whose audiences we wanted to reach, that we did not get accepted into.
But recently we’ve been getting more traction, likely due to some of the strides made in visibility of AAPI issues that were brought on due to the pandemic, as well as that many people found healing in taking a slower and more attentive approach.
As the cultural landscape has shifted, we’ve had more and more positive feedback - we were programmed in Busan Int’l Short Film Fest’s “Asian Americana” block, as well as other festivals in places ranging from Beirut, Lebanon to Eugene, Oregon.
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
ETA: We understand why a project like this can be difficult to program, but it's still surprising that intentionally eschewing more traditionally Western narrative constructions in favor of a more Eastern approach wasn't embraced more by some of the bigger AAPI film festivals.
SHANHUAN: When you look at what they are programming, it does seem like while they champion films about AAPI identity, they are still very much drawn to more conventional Western storytelling within those films. There’s definitely an aspect of programming festivals that can lean a little too much towards aiming to please the palate of a certain kind of audience, or following a certain mold because that’s what is currently acclaimed or something. But, as we’ve seen, there are also festivals and audiences out there that are interested in more experimental modes of storytelling, so I think it’s already changing.
ETA: No comment, except that I stan Minari.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
ETA: We'd love to keep reaching a wider audience who connects with it. Building out a larger network with other multi-hyphenates and movers and shakers who we connect with and can collaborate with in the future would be a boon too, especially as (apologies for speaking for you, Shanhuan) we both respectively feel like we’re hitting a creative stride.
SHANHUAN: Our film is also a very special documentation of a moment in history - in many ways, it’s already an artifact of a world that doesn’t exist anymore, that has changed a lot. For the better in some ways, but also with much loss. Making this portal to that world available, keeping it open for people to access that specific moment in time and the stories of that time, to me seems like an important work of cultural preservation, or something along those lines, and more visibility in that regard will always be helpful.
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
ETA: It’d be great to find a streaming home for Confluence once the festival run concludes, and of course, any press coverage and film festival programmers wanting to program it always helps catalyze our potential future endeavors.
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
ETA: That the film can help be an entry point for queer individuals and diasporic experiences, especially within the APIDA communities…
SHANHUAN: Especially those who might be struggling with a sense of belonging within fragmented cultures and overly constrictive binaries in identity politics.
ETA: Also, just a gentle reminder of how it feels to slow things down.
SHANHUAN: Yeah, we’re hoping to further potential applications of the meditative gaze. We’d love to see Tiktok’s made in a meditative manner haha! Or some other signs of a cultural embrace of slowing down.
ETA: Yeah, that’d be ideal.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?
ETA: How comfortable do you feel sitting in silence?
SHANHUAN: What is the role of identity in worldmaking? I think there’s a big conversation that could be had around how identity functions when it becomes the focus of political organizing… while it can be useful in conveying the stories of how things got to where they are, and shorthand for locating ourselves in different contexts, there are limits. Acknowledging histories and unequal power balances is important, but conversations around identity can often lead to more focus on optics than on actually addressing power imbalances. At the same time, there is empowerment in crafting identity, and bringing together community around shared experiences. So what is the responsible way of telling those stories? Do you think it might be a matter of unlearning the framing of everyone’s story as “the Hero’s Journey?” What would a more community-centric way of telling the stories that shape our society be?
Would you like to add anything else?
Come see it at NewFilmMakersLA, on 5/13, in the block Infocus:Asian Cinema Shorts 1
What other projects are the key creatives developing or working on now?
ETA: I'm a month out from production for White Gaze, a horror-adjacent gentrification drama I wrote and will be directing, and also have a couple of other narrative shorts in early pre-production.
SHANHUAN: I’ve got a documentary about myco-remediation that I’m developing, about humans collaborating with fungi and more-than-human kin to restore landscapes poisoned by industrial waste. We're also working on a couple of follow-ups to Confluence employing the same methodology of meditative cinema, but set in different spheres.
Interview: May 2023
We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series, music video, women's films, LGBTQIA+, POC, First Nations, scifi, supernatural, horror, world cinema. If you have just made a film - we'd love to hear from you. Or if you know a filmmaker - can you recommend us? More info: Carmela
Confluence: A Meditation in Documentary Form
Confluence is a mix of hypnotic images and heartfelt testimonies exploring the turmoil of being othered, while enduring creatively and shattering community and perceptual barriers. The reductive myths unjustly stuck on the Asian American diaspora are directly questioned by those who'd rather choose their own labels — or simply do away with them altogether.
Length: 15:00
Director: ETA, Shanhuan Manton
Producer: ETA
About the writer, director and producer:
ETA is a first-gen Vietnamese-American genrefluid filmmaker raised in Tustin, CA by Vietnam War refugees. Their debut feature film, Stockton 2 Malone, premiered via Afropunk and was lauded for infusing “intersectional, diverse identities into the mumblecore genre.” Confluence, their documentary short exploring ancestry and identity through first-person testimonies and live musical performances, has screened at several film festivals around the US and abroad, including Oscar-qualifying Busan International Short Film Fest and SF DocFest, Viet Film Fest and NewFilmmakers LA.
SHANHUAN MANTON is a genderqueer Chinese-American filmmaker focused on composting extractive methods of cinematic storytelling into regenerative rituals and making the possibilities of speculative worlds real through collective storytelling.
Key cast: Ceramiks, Jangus Kangus, Kelleia, Laciste, oh my muu, Reinabe, Shunkan, Zhao
Looking for: journalists, distributors and buyers
Twitter: @ETAwashere
Instagram: @etawashere
Other: Vimeo
Made in association with: moonroom
Where can I watch it next and in the coming month?
5/1; Busan International Short Film Festival/Busan, South Korea
5/13; NewFilmmakers Los Angeles/Los Angeles, CA
6/1; Cabriolet Film Festival/Beirut, Lebanon