How Varda’s Docs Inspired S. Leo Chiang to Make ‘Island in Between’ Even More Personal

There is a curious restlessness all throughout S. Leo Chiang’s Oscar-nominated documentary short, Island in Between. It stayed very fresh in my mind ever since the shortlist came out, and a lot of the imagery and archival footage flashed through my mind vividly when I re-watched it. When you have filmmaking this personal, you cannot help but get drawn in, and Chiang didn’t always think of making this film with his own personal experience in mind. 

**We have linked Chiang’s film below. Please consider watching it and then scrolling back up to read our conversation.

I mention that melancholy at the beginning of our conversation. Since I didn’t share Chiang’s experience of multiple citizenships, I expressed my delight in how his film yanked something out of me–something I didn’t quite know how to articulate.

“Sometimes I feel like there is a rootlessness that could very much be an immigrant thing or it could be a gay thing,” Chiang admits. “It could just be a sense of not belonging that I’ve learned to embrace or this sense of melancholy that became a part of me. It will always be a part of me even if there isn’t an outward expression that’s super spelled out.”

Are we always looking for something to complete an idea of our own identity? I ponder if we are ever settled when it comes to accepting our own family life or circumstances.

“There’s this idea that you are looking for your identity hidden in a jewelry box buried in the backyard, and, once you find it, you’re done,” he says. “If you’re curious about yourself and the world, you’ll always be curious. You’re changing as the world changes around you, and there will always be that uncertainty that I wanted to put in the film. This film is much more me than anything that I have ever done.”

Island in Between beautifully melds together the themes of an immigrant story with China and Taiwan’s history with Chiang’s exploration of where he belongs. In one of the first establishing shots, we see how close Kinmen Island is to the city of China’s Xiamen. With its forest of skyscrapers, we instantly wonder how the two shores differ from one another. Xiamen feels like its looming over the smaller island, its eyes always watching with a careful glare.

“The funny thing is that I actually went to the Chinese city of Xiamen before I visited Kinmen,” Chiang says. ‘From the other side, you can’t quite see it since there aren’t all of these huge buildings–you can faintly see some land from the horizon. From the Kinmen Island, it’s striking. It feels like those building are haunting the people, and, in the old days, that city was a fishing village with very little economic development. It’s not like it is now, and, with the city booming, the people on Kinmen Island watch with a mixture of envy and some confusion. We want what they have, but we don’t want the political system that they have. I can only imagine that that adds to the confusion of it all. Maybe the people who live there don’t feel like that since it’s been so long, but I felt that feeling. It’s so close.”

There is an image of a tank shown at the beginning of Island. As the camera circles around, it feels like an oddity out of place, but then we realize that it serves as an important historical reminder. Chiang informs me of some of the rising tensions that were reported hours before our Zoom call began, but my mind kept going back to that tank sinking in the sand. It’s stubborn, refusing to sink deeper into the sand or disappear completely, and the smoothness of the sand surrounding it coupled with the strange angle makes its difficult to pull your eyes away from it. We come back to that image again later on before the film ends.

“Last week, a small Chinese fishing boat came into the Taiwanese side, and the coast guard chased it. The boat capsized and two people died. The Chinese government retaliated by flagging down a tourist boat that was circling Kinmen and they forced themselves on board and checked everybody’s documents. This is escalating now, and it’s such a dramatic contrast to about fifteen years ago when you could swim across. For me, that tank represents everything. It is a ghost sitting there haunting you when it feels like it should be related to tourism. At the same time, it’s mocking you and saying that we are in the past but we are also in the not-so-distant future and this could all come back again very quickly. You read about conflicts escalating anywhere in the world, and we are presented with facts, but you don’t think about how it feels for the people who live there.”

I know I needed to show it multiple times, because it is a character. The first time, it’s more of a spectacle, and you don’t even know what you might be looking at it. When I show it at the end, you are now projecting the new emotions about the place or my story onto it. You understand more of what it represents to the people who might still be living there. It’s almost as if there is an arc of this object. As a filmmaker, it’s not just about thinking about the geopolitical landscape, but also the filmmaking. I wanted to really push myself. I knew there were beautiful images, but I needed to develop them further.”

Chiang’s film never feels bogged down by any historical elements he introduces. It’s almost as if he took two entrees and carefully placed them on top of one another, and the fusion lends itself to that personal melancholy felt throughout. I was surprised to learn that Chiang didn’t intend on making this with a personal lens, but I was thrilled to learn one of his inspirations.

“It wasn’t my intention to make this so personal. My education at USC was more about a traditional three-act structure, and I have a lot of that in my previous work. I have always been a fan of observational filmmaking, but, in the last few years, I am pushing myself to do something different. Maybe it’s a response to the pandemic or because I am getting older. When I started doing this, I wanted to do a City Symphonies type of film. Meeting different people and not having too clear of a context in these different vignettes. When I showed it to people, I got some people that the point of view wasn’t strong enough, so I had to think about that. I wanted to make this for an international audience, so I went back to the drawing board and watched a lot of Agnes Varda’s documentaries. I had seen some, and I was always fascinated to see how she married her personal threads with the theme of the film. Through how she infuses herself in it, it made them bigger in terms of their humanity even if she had nothing to do with the topic at hand. Going forward, I knew it made emotional sense, and that’s where I restarted from. When it’s all said and done, I don’t think I’ve shared too much of myself, but I assume the Chinese government is aware of me now. I might be giving up some possibility of making a film in China in the near future, but that’s not my priority right now. I want to focus on my story as a Taiwanese American. The struggle to find your place in the world and coming to terms with your identity is something very universal that I want to explore.”

There is a simple image that carries an enormous amount of weight as it indicates how much Chiang travels and where he calls home. He places three passports on the table, and he shares a longing to belong. We can all, no matter our background or circumstances, latch onto this longing that Chiang expresses. Would you be able to reveal this much of yourself with such a large audience?

“The things I am doing sounds naïve to be sometimes when I say it out loud. I want people to feel connected in our disconnection. I want to find a tribe in this in between place. I grew up marginalized in many ways with my background of being an immigrant and being a gay boy within two cultures. There are many people in that in between, and sometimes I think that’s where I belong. I need to stop chasing after this place that I think I need to be. It’s something that we have to cope with.”

Island in Between is streaming via The New York Time’s YouTube page, and you can find it on the big screen as part of ShortsTV’s theatrical programming.