What Came Before

2020, 3 min, 6 sec

Directors: Jae Lew and Caroline So Jung Lee

“What Came Before” is a black and white short film filmed within Mount Pleasant and Chinatown on unceded Coast Salish Territories, also known as Vancouver, BC. The film is 3 minutes and 6 seconds, recorded with a Bolex camera on 16mm black and white reversal film and hand-processed using eco-processing methods (plants, bleach, caffenol) at Echo Park Film Centre North. Initially conceived for Duplex’s Winter artist residency from February-March 2020, artists Jae Lew and Caroline So Jung Lee filmed on a single roll of film, exploring the broader themes of seasonal change and Asian identity. The film was created using an in-camera double exposure, layering one story and perspective onto the other.

The first layer, filmed by Caroline, features a young Tibetan-Canadian woman whose initial conversations turn into a physical reconnection to the land. Spring returns, the land thaws and the film explores the changes felt in the body. The woman touches and sways along with the grass, rocks and soil. There is the desire to go against societal expectations of bodily contact or social interactions with the natural world. 

The second layer, filmed by Jae Lew, was shot entirely in Vancouver’s Chinatown, an area that is rapidly changing due to ongoing gentrification. Areas and storefronts Jae frequented as a child with their family are explored, seeking to capture the remnants of what’s left and what places and memories used to exist there. Birds flying through the cityscape, LED signs and air conditioners in the window of apartments are captured, immortalizing a brief moment in time. 

The final film is a short experimental documentary that reflects the diversity of Asian experiences and transformations made visible through the natural world. The film hints at immigrant lives and histories of loss, displacement and reconnection on the unceded lands of so-called Vancouver. The analogue filmmaking process, historically a medium used by marginalized groups, allows the artists to explore their vision and craft on a small scale. The eco-developing process creates flashes, blurs, dust, scratches and shadows on the film. These imperfections meld story and material. Contrary to what industrial film suggests, the filmmaking process is fragile and fallible as is its historical documentation.