At the Bottom of the Sea

"What Came Before" is a short experimental documentary filmed within Mount Pleasant and Chinatown on unceded Coast Salish Territories, also known as Vancouver, BC. Jae Lew and Caroline So Jung Lee created double exposures on a single 16mm roll, exploring the diversity of Asian experiences and transformations made visible through the natural world.

ghosts of cambie blends visual music, collage and documentary. It focuses on the neighbourhoods of South Cambie and Fairview that lie on the unceded, traditional, ancestral territories of the Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lo and S.’lílw.taʔ/ Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xwm.θkw.y’.m (Musqueam) Nations (known by some as Vancouver, BC, Canada). Shot on 16mm colour reversal film and cut with archival found footage, the film explores the emotional friction within a neighbourhood of changing communities, shopkeepers, settlers and lives. While Hong Kong migrants in the 1980s were a major force in shaping the architectural and cultural landscape of the community, evidence of these lives are disappearing due to rapid gentrification and erasure of history. Remnants are left behind.