Almost as soon as a new resident arrives at a humble apartment building in Parkdale, Toronto in “100 Sunset,” they are asked to think about where they’ll live next, which isn’t to say that the predominantly Tibetan community that lives there isn’t welcoming. Instead, they want what’s best for those they know are starting new lives in Canada and are eager to see them expanding their lives rather than be constrained to a small flat, pooling their money together for a lottery known as the dhikuti when they get enough residents willing to join, providing enough for just one to set up a home somewhere else.
Kunsel (Tenzin Kunsel), the lead of Kunsang Kyirong’s bewitching drama, isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, too young to apply to the dhikuti herself as a teenager, but also not in a position to put a bid in when her father runs the contest, which has created stability for her family but also a feel of stasis. She has few friends to call her own between an inherent reserve and the transitory nature of residents in the building who rarely stay for long, though she is able to latch onto Passang (Sonam Choekyi), the new bride of the most recent tenant to take up residence in the building who turns heads when she’s young enough to take the same ESL classes as Kunsel. The two sit together at school, but start spending time with one another outside of class as well, which is preferable for Kunsel than the older people she generally has to hang out with as her father arranges other games of chance in their apartment. It’s what makes the two venturing out into the wilderness during a cold Canadian winter actually feel cozier than a cramped flat full of people where the heater is running when caught between ages and cultures, they find a connection with one another when few others seem to.
Then again, Kyirong allows the two to be understood by everyone when the comforts of a tight-knit community can be seen as alienating in its rigid routines and working with “Matt and Mara’ cinematographer Nikolay Michaylov, the director crisply envisions these two emotional realities within the same frame. The filmmaker, who has explored a number of different forms within film from animation to documentary, has a distinctive approach to the tale of someone who constantly feels on the outside looking in no matter what realm she’s in, often mediating her experience with a video camera, and cleverly positions “100 Sunset” to skirt the periphery itself of various genres as Kunsel’s habit of picking pockets and her father’s money-collecting operation contribute a sense of danger ordinarily associated with underworld stories of another kind, though the main mystery here is one of identity. Following the film’s premiere at the Toronto Film Festival just a few streets away from where it was shot, Kyirong graciously took the time to talk about how she fashioned such a transfixing debut feature, working with the Tibetan community in Parkdale and the trial by fire she faced on the first day of filming.
How did this come about?
It actually started in a screenwriting class in 2021 at York University, and after the class, I continued to develop the story while living in Parkdale, Toronto. During my youth and my teens, I had come to the neighborhood several times had an online correspondence with various friends. I also had aunts who lived in the city. so while I was writing and developing the story, a lot of those memories were coming to the forefront.
Then when I started actively writing the script more in preparation for the Talent to Watch application, I had made a trip to Jackson Heights, New York, where there’s also a very large Tibetan enclave and a greater Himalayan community. I had met some friends of a cousin who had recently moved from India and one of them was telling me about dhikuti and this kind of lottery system that he was participating in. During that time, I had also finished a book about the first wave of Chinese immigrants in New York City that worked as Chinese hand laundry men that had their own pooling financial system called Wei. When I heard this friend talk about dhikuti, the two [ideas] clicked and I realized, “This is going to be the scaffolding of the film.”
Another structural element seemed to be the camcorder footage, a lot of which was obviously produced for the film, but some of it looked like you may have been collecting it over the years. What was it like to use that footage?
Early on in the film’s development, there’s some footage that a friend of mine had showed me and said I could use. It’s actually integrated into the opening sequence of the film during the restaurant scene where there’s 2008 footage of Tibet and I was really thinking about camcorder footage and memory over time and being able to mirror that then within the context of this new relationship between these two young women.
[That element] was always written into the script, but I think finding the right rhythm was something that my editor Brendan Mills and I worked very hard to find the right balance. Brendan is a very intuitive and well-versed editor and I was very lucky that we were able to sometimes move things around so that there was the right visual balance, [giving] almost a melodic nature to our A-cam footage and the handycam footage.How did you find your lead Tenzin to play Kunsel?
Tenzin Kunsel, who plays Kunsel, is the daughter of the friend of Khenpo Ngawang Woser, who was one of the casting directors on the film. She had also recently immigrated from India maybe six to eight months before meeting her, and [once she was cast] she agreed to start meeting me once a week. The character that I had been developing was always a bit more observant, but as I got to know Kunsel, I realized that her shyness could be emphasized even more to play someone who, at the beginning of the film, is almost nonverbal. To be quite frank, when meeting her, sometimes I’d have to gently get things out of her, but she was always interested and up for playing the role.
You feel like you really see Sonam Choekyi bring something out of her as Passang. What was it like to see the two of them together?
I kept the two young women separate for the first few months and then started to integrate our weekend dates at around the three-month mark. At first, I think Kunsel was maybe a little uncomfortable with how open and bubbly Sonam, who plays Passang was. But over time, Sonam really made an effort to push Kunsel to open up and hopefully, we see that play out in the film as well. At the script stage and with the first pass of the edit, the film had maybe a more ensemble aspect to it [as well], but we found [ourselves] pushing the girls and their relationship forwards even more because it was so wonderful to see how well that dynamic was working.
You’re working with one of our favorite cinematographers in Nikolay Michaylov, who worked on “Measures for a Funeral” and “Matt and Mara” as well. What was he like to collaborate with?
It was incredible. He’s such an intuitive and hardworking cinematographer and he dedicated a lot of his time to the production, but also the pre-production stages of this film, coming with me to locations and spending time with some of the people that were involved in the film as cast to the restaurants and getting a sense of the neighborhood at large. I was very lucky that he really cared and invested so much time before the production stages of the film.
His own visual capacity added so much to the film. We were really mapping out a visual style that felt distant yet voyeuristic and [we developed] this philosophy of shooting through objects, like through or under a lamp, doorways, mirrors, hallways, and thinking about what that might be like within the context of these spaces as well.
There’s a scene in the film at a huge event that appears as if it must’ve been really unpredictable and you were simply integrating the actors into an unfolding situation. What was that day like?
That was our first day of production and it was on Christmas Day when this fashion show party had started. That almost set a precedent for production in terms of this level of commitment that we were throwing everyone into and it was an active fashion show with hundreds of people that were there performing. Luckily, the two Sunims that were [in charge of the event] at the time let us film there, so we were able to, not very discreetly, set up our crew and this photo booth stage within in the event that was already taking place and filming guerrilla style. It was very exciting, and it was also just such a beautiful space with the sound and music that you hear reverberating throughout the venue. Because of that, it was an exciting way to start the movie.
Having done documentary and animation as well, was working this mode of filmmaking satisfying?
Definitely. I think even when I was doing animation with experimental charcoal under the camera, what I was always drawn to was storytelling and even within “Dhulpa,” the docu-fiction that I also made, there’s a strong narrative through line throughout that short film. Very early on in the development of “100 Sunset,” I realized this was going to be a scripted narrative film, even though a lot of the pre-production and the development had qualities that were documentary-esque in nature. A lot of the process was quite intuitive in terms of who can I ask, not that intuition is a reduction in any kind of way. [It was] Who should I talk to to get a space like this? Or does anyone know anyone who lives here? It was a very natural-seeming process that relied very heavily on various individuals that were willing to help us. And I feel very lucky to have had the world premiere in Toronto where the film was shot and have audiences come and watch this film and members of the community can see themselves on screen. It’s been very exciting.
“100 Sunset” does not yet have U.S. distribution. It will next screen at the Vancouver Film Festival on October 3rd at 6:15 pm at the VIFF Cinematheque and October 5th at 3:30 pm at the International Village 7.