What If Every Story We Tell Is Really About Ourselves?
Let’s call him Owen. He was eight years old, and he couldn’t read.
At first, he hid it well. The moment I assigned an activity that involved any kind of literacy, he acted out. Throwing his computer mouse, arguing, twice he took off running and made me chase him around the building. While the other kids worked on their assignment, he sat in time out. Free to doze off, daydream – anything but read.
This was the summer after my senior year of film school. I was a counselor at a technology-themed camp who despised the laptops they provided the kids. Instead, I made them do activities like write short stories and put on plays. It was during one of these times that Owen – unable to dart, since I had been watching him like a hawk – sulkily called me over.
The other kids giggled as he spoke, and he wouldn’t look me in the eyes as he stabbed his paper with a marker.
“How do you spell my?”
“M-Y.”
“Name?”
“N-A-M-E.”
“Is?”
“I-S.”
He paused with his little brow furrowed. “Okay,” he said. “Thanks. I already know how to spell Owen.”
All his fellow campers were laughing. My heart sank at Owen’s once pale skin now reddening up to his blond scalp, I shot warning glances around the table. “You can ask me whatever you want,” I assured Owen. “It’s no big deal.”
He didn’t respond. But after that, a wordless understanding seemed to solidify between him and I. Maybe he appreciated the attention I gave him – mostly to make sure he wasn’t acting out, but he didn’t care to see the difference – or he was simply clinging to the fact I didn’t mock him.
Sure, we had nothing in common. He was white child from a wealthy family, I was a young Asian-American adult who was also a broke college student. One time, he asked me if I was poor
because I said I liked to cook. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but feel for him, especially when he spoke about how his parents never seemed to have time for him.
So I let him stick by me at recess, hang out during group events where he was supposed to socialize with other kids. After each day at camp ended, he stayed for the extended day program and showed me his dance moves (“Look, I can hit the griddy!”). He once grabbed my hand out of instinct when we walked by a busy road. He begged to see pictures of my pet fish, and spent half an hour guessing my age (“32?”).
On his last day at camp, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of sadness. I had been gifted a glimpse at the softness behind Owen’s unruly exterior, and now I would never see him again.
I returned to film school for a busy year, consumed by my screenwriting thesis and punk band. Yet my brain always drifted back to Owen. Was he doing all right at school? Did he have any friends? Were his parents spending more time with him?
I could ponder forever, but I’d never get any answers. Might as well do something productive with my worrying. I wanted to raise awareness about the countless issues regarding childcare. Educate people about the complexities of race and class inside such a system, and the children and workers who suffered for it.
This is what led to the creation of Devils. With a grant from my university, I wrote and directed this short film with a team of talented friends. The story follows a young Asian-American woman who, after fleeing domestic violence, becomes a nanny for a troubled white child. When she learns he cannot read, she sets out to teach him – creating a friendship that will change both their lives forever.
The whole filmmaking process was a blur. Three days on set, a few weeks working with an editor, and then the next thing I knew I was submitting to festivals. After our screenings, I met a dozen filmmakers and cinephiles who asked, What inspired Devils? Why did you make it? I gave the same rehearsed answer every time. I’d like to raise awareness, etc etc. I spoke of the film almost as if it was a PSA. There were things I wanted to teach, and I was doing it now.
Yet the more I said such things, the more my words seemed to fall flat. What was wrong? Logically, the answer seemed simple. I was spreading my ideas on social issues that were important to me. It wasn’t until I turned my mind to my deeply sunken, almost atavistic emotional motivations that I was able to acknowledge the reigning theme of my film – loneliness.
When I was Owen’s age, I was one of the only Asian-Americans in my grade. Plagued by a speech impediment and an endless tenure in the English Language Learners program, I recall sitting in a room full of peers and wondering why I was different. There were endless ideas in my head that would never come out quite right – and with that communication barrier came a deep sense of inadequacy and shame. With shame came isolation, and then with that came loneliness.
I’m sure Owen experienced this, too.
Devils, I realized, is truly a film about that particular emotion. The unifying factor between so many of us. There is a great loneliness in knowing you are different from a very young age. Even as an adult, some part of it will always linger within your soul.
Ultimately, I made Devils for many reasons. A teaching moment is one of them, but the greatest is catharsis. A chance to exorcise that childhood loneliness that remains burrowed in my heart. Through the act of storytelling – rendering, editing my own life as a camp counselor into a digestible story – I created a narrative that helped me understand how and why such things had happened. I was ironing out my emotions regarding Owen, our connection, and our separation. Simultaneously, I was seeing myself in both characters, the child and the caretaker all at once. And in the emotional climax of the film, I was freeing myself from dual hurts – one from a summer ago, and the other from my childhood over a decade ago.
Life is a tangled ball of tattered yarn. Filmmaking is the unraveling. Trying to make something new out of shreds, even if the reasons are difficult to parse.
In time, storytelling reveals all.
Watch the full short film Called Devils by Director Kate Ahn
FULL FILM CREDITS
CAST / Sun Jin (@saintsunjin) as Julie / Ranen Navat as River / Brittany Grenus as Sandra / Rio Hundley (@riojhoney) as Izzy / Briane Kay Davis as Nicole / Ethan Nählinder (@ethan.nahlinder) / Travers Tobis as Brian
CREATIVE & PRODUCTION / Writer & Director: Kate Ahn (@evilpaddington) / Producer: Ethan Nählinder (@ethan.nahlinder) / Director of Photography: Tejas Raghuram (@t3j45r_film) / Editor: Victoria Santorsiero (@v.santorsiero) / Soundtrack: Annabelle Hendrickson (@annabellehendrickson)
CAMERA & LIGHTING / Camera Operator: Jake Wayne (@jakewaynecine) / Assistant Camera: Gabby Klijian (@thegreatgabini) / Gaffers: Hwei Chen (@hweilight), Rajiv Awasthi (@rajivtherajiv), Kaz Phoenix (@kaz.phoenix) / Key Grips: Sam Umbay (@samanthaumbay), Hayden Doan (@doan.haydenz) / Grip & Electric Swings: William Dobak (@williamdobak), Natalie Ruiz Varela (@natalieruizvarela), Ella / Christiansen (@ellac_rhodes)
ART, COSTUME & MAKEUP / Production Designer: Isabella Durand (@_isabelladurand) / Costumes: Wendy Gonzalez Vivano (@envywendy) / Hair & Makeup: Colette Bassett (@letlettalive) / Art Production Assistant: Emma-Ann Fiorillo (@emma.ann_fiorillo)
SOUND & POST-PRODUCTION / Sound Mixer: Derek Deroche (@derekderoche) / Sound Designer: Victoria Santorsiero (@v.santorsiero) / Colorist: Tejas Raghuram (@t3j45r_film)
ADDITIONAL CREW / Assistant Director: Rachana Aithal (@rachanaithal) / Script Supervisor: Remy Balembois (@rjbalembois) / Production Assistants: Annabelle Hendrickson (@annabellehendrickson), Christian Savage / Location Managers: Rio Hundley (@riojhoney), Alex Roznovsky (@alexroznovsky) / Studio Teachers: Marcy Brooks, Dana Gardner / Special thanks to the Hundley family and the McPhee family.
Photo © Devils by Kate Ahn
Comments