Visiting Filmmakers Series: S. Leo Chiang, Our Time Machine

More Information

Host: Laura Nix is a director, writer, and producer working in non-fiction and fiction. Her short film, WALK RUN CHA-CHA, was nominated for a 2020 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject, and the New York Times series, FROM HERE TO HOME, in which the film appears, was nominated for a 2020 News and Documentary Emmy. Her feature documentary, INVENTING TOMORROW, won a 2019 Peabody Award. She also directed The Yes Men Are Revolting (2014) and was named a Sundance Impact/Discovery Fellow in 2017. Read more about Laura here.

"If cinema can be interpreted as yet another variation on H.G. Wells’ time machine, then Chiang and Sun have succeeded at transporting us into the psyches of their subjects, where past events blur together with our impressions of them." Matt Fagerholm, RogerEbert.com 2020

Thursday, February 17, 2022 7:30 PM to 9:00 PM EST
Online Location

Join S. Leo Chiang to talk about his remarkable film, Our Time Machine.

The documentary follows the story of a father and son. When influential Chinese artist Ma Liang (Maleonn) realizes that his father Ma Ke, an accomplished Peking Opera director, is suffering from Alzheimer's disease, they begin to collaborate on Maleonn's most ambitious project to date.

"Papa's Time Machine" is a haunting, magical, autobiographical stage performance featuring life-size mechanical puppets. Through the creation of this play, the two men confront their complex history, changing relationship, and enduring bond.

The film also ponders the power of art, across generations and through time, through documenting Maleonn's project, and also through considering its own functions as art, a record, and memory.

See Our Time Machine ITVS site here.

"Maleonn’s wondrous creations are enough of an attraction on their own, but the film, which picked up the cinematography award in the documentary section at Tribeca, has many more layers to reveal about the legacy of Cultural Revolution, familial relationships, the agonies of love and loss and the circle of life" (Scott Tobias, Variety, 2019).

"Though Our Time Machine is technically a documentary about an artist honoring his father by staging a play about their relationship, it’s also a thoughtful exploration of memory and growing up" (Marisa Carpico, The Pop Break, 2019)

#VisitingFilmmakersSeries #FilmAtMason #OurTimeMachine

For more information:

Anjuli Singh, asingh80@gmu.edu, Exhibitions and Office Coordinator, Film at Mason

Cynthia Fuchs cfuchs@gmu.edu, Director, Visiting Filmmakers Series at Mason; Interim Director, Film at Mason