Project Spotlight: ‘A Cure for All Things’, a Sci-fi short about Immigrant Stories

Katherine Chou is a Taiwanese-American writer and director whose work primarily explores themes of identity and personhood through a magical realist lens. She began exploring filmmaking with friends in the suburbs of Los Angeles before developing her visual lens further through travel, including a solo backpacking tour across Europe and Asia. She was invited to attend Bucheon International Film Festival’s Fantastic Film School in South Korea and also studied at Sciences Po Paris, where she learned from working with seasoned filmmakers. We’re so thrilled to share her incredible sci-fi short, A Cure for All Things, a story that will pull you in immediately via your heartstrings. This short was produced through Visual Communications’ Armed With a Camera Fellowship and named a finalist in the Telling Our Stories Contest presented by STARZ, The Wrap, and Women in Film. A Cure for All Things uniquely wields the sci-fi genre to tell a multigenerational story about an immigrant family and their struggles finding a sense of belonging in the past, present, and future. Read on to learn more about Katherine’s dynamic filmmaking and watch A Cure for All Things premiere on the Light Leaks!

What creative decisions are you most proud of in this short?
Making this film was an exercise in trust and resolve. We wanted to take this ambitious, high-concept premise and execute it in an elegant way. It was such an intricate, interlocking thing that it was hard to know if it would click until every element had been added in. But many of the subtle cues that make the film work - VFX, sound design, color grading - don’t come in until the end of the process. We were fighting quite a bit of feedback, some of it coming from ourselves, that doubted whether it would work. But it was like judging a dinosaur from the skeleton alone, without all the muscle and skin and feathers. I’m proud of the fact that I trusted my vision and instincts and created something unexpected and moving as a result. 

Another decision I’m proud of was centering the Taiwanese-American experience throughout the process. I didn’t make this movie to explain my humanity to mainstream audiences or take them on a tour of my culture. I made a conscious decision to center and humanize our characters, present cultural details as a given, and have the characters code-switch between Taiwanese, Mandarin, and English, sometimes within the same sentence, according to their backgrounds. That fluidity is a reflection of my own experience as someone with roots in three continents whose identities are intertwined and often blurred.

Were there any production challenges on set that you had to swiftly adapt to?
The biggest challenge on set was making sure we got all the elements we needed for VFX in the timeframe that we had. We shot the film in a day and a half, and it takes time to prep and strike a green screen for each new setup. We started running out of time, as you do on set, and I ended up rewriting scenes and glitches on the fly, simplifying transitions so that we could get everything we needed for the film to make sense. I honestly wasn’t sure we had everything going into the edit. I was afraid to find out. But it all turned out for the best, as it usually does. 

What genres, or genre conventions, were you playing with in this film?
My approach was always to put the story first, with genre elements following as a natural extension of the story. With a six minute short, however, we have so little time to build the world and telegraph what each character is all about, and that’s where genre conventions were very helpful as a sort of shared shorthand with the audience. For example, the glitch itself is not electronic in nature, but we referenced phenomena like chromatic aberration and sounds of static in its design so that you’d be able to instantly understand it. It was also important to be subtle, but still have fun remixing different creative influences. The character of Zara wears futuristic robes and wearable projection tech, but her makeup design references looks from the Tang Dynasty. I wanted all these details to build into a tapestry that the audience would subconsciously piece together.

Can you walk us through how the VFX were chosen and added to enhance the story?
I love magical realism and stories imbued with subtle, unexpected magic as a reflection of character and deeper emotional themes. I knew I wanted to challenge myself to tell that kind of story and make a film that reflects my sensibilities and ambitions. At the same time, we were working with limited resources and I was very mindful of feasibility while writing the script, so that even though we were dealing with high concept ideas like glitches and time travel, I always had an idea of how we might create them with a mix of practical effects and simple VFX. 

Where did the inspiration for the mysterious vial and its powers come from? Your own life or imagination?
Initially, I was inspired by all the mysterious health supplements in my mom’s fridge. I think a crowded fridge is something a lot of people, especially people with Asian moms or grandmas, can relate to. I started to wonder, what if one of those supplements actually did something as magical as they’re marketed to do? 

Eventually the vial became a sort of anchoring device, a vehicle that would allow me to transform all the intangible ideas and thoughts I’d been having about legacy, identity, and migration into something literal and tangible. That’s what so much of speculative fiction is, isn’t it? A metaphor for the things we don’t know how to say. 

How do you tell stories that resonate with your audience?
I center my truth and trust that if it resonates with me, it will resonate with others. 

Any advice for other rising women and nonbinary filmmakers?
Trust your judgment and don’t be afraid to follow your convictions. I mean this artistically, but professionally as well. If an opportunity doesn’t feel right, trust your instincts, advocate for yourself, and know that it’s okay to make the choice that’s right for you. Toxic narratives of success can be so loud in this industry. Certain practices feel inevitable, but they don’t have to be. Remember to put your humanity first and when in doubt, draw strength from other marginalized filmmakers’ example and know you’re not alone.

Follow more of Katherine’s creative journey here:
- her website: https://katherinechou.com/