I first came across Shalemar Coloma’s documentary work at “Reclaiming the Past and Rallying the Present,” an A/P/A BRIDGE (Asian/Pacific/Americans Building Relationships to Inspire Diversity, Growth, and Empowerment) activism installation held in April. A sophomore at Tisch, Shalemar has been exploring intersectional identity through her filmmaking. (She also wears an amazing hot pink fur coat that I want to cop.) Because it was finals week, we met Shalemar in the lobby of Bobst, where we were lying on one of the black couches, staring up into the abyss of failed hopes and dreams, to talk about London Tipton, being Filipinx, and her recent work. -Elaine

What’s your name and what do you do?

My name’s Shalemar Coloma. I go to Tisch for film, and I guess I consider myself a filmmaker.

Wait, can I just say I was really confused because I was looking at your Instagram (@shlemarcolofe) and your name was different…

Yeah, it’s really bad. In eighth grade I was on my local news station because Michelle Obama came to town, and she was hosting this screening of Harry Potter. And so I was one of the people in line and they were like let’s interview some people, and I was interviewed about two of my favorite things back then, Michelle Obama and Harry Potter. And they were like spell your name so we can write it, and I swear I spelled it correctly but it came out like, Shlemar Colofe. And now that is just like haunting me. [But you’ve embraced it into your identity, that’s cool.] Yeah! I have to. I’m re-appropriating it.

Can you tell us about the documentary you recently worked on that was at the A/P/A BRIDGE exhibition?

Yeah, it was an anthology of films, it was three parts. And two of them I had done in my Sight and Sound documentary class. It’s weird, I didn’t come here to make Asian-centric films or things about my identity, I was like, I’m Filipino but I want to break boundaries and write for Broad City and be a person of color somewhere! But it became more personal because I was starting to realize, oh my gosh, being Filipino I don’t feel very visible here and I was constantly confronted with that and felt this super super big urgency to make films about Asian Americans and Filipino Americans. And that is called no history, no self.

I feel this sense that I still need to keep making stuff because when I was growing up there wasn’t much and I had to either identify with like…if there was an Asian American it was London Tipton! Which was like, thank God. If there was anyone, it was Brenda Song. But being forced as a Filipino to have to identify with Chinese or Japanese or East Asians…there’s definitely similarities in our cultural experiences but there is so much that is different. I felt the world was constantly telling me, this is who you are, when that’s so obviously not true. And I think that’s what the Asian American experience is. Or at least one of the issues in the Asian American community.

Where’d you grow up?

I grew up in Virginia. But my dad was in the military, so we lived in Japan and California. I liked Virginia. I think I grew up pretty diverse, I don’t know. There’s a whole bunch of people there, and in Virginia Beach since it’s a military city, there’s a lot of Filipinos there. They were always kinda around. I always felt different being in school. But I knew they were there, they were around the city so it didn’t feel like I’m so different and I’m like a Filipino girl in a sea of white people! It wasn’t really like that. But here it feels different.

Would you say that growing up you were connected with Filipino culture?

I think I was by default in it, just ‘cause of my parents. But I never really felt connected to it. Especially when I was a younger teenager, I felt like I was super trying to distance myself from it and I don’t think I had the language to know what I was doing at that moment. It was like, ok, I’m going to listen to Vampire Weekend and Wes Anderson movies! I wanna be just like them. But I wasn’t realizing what I was thinking, I was thinking, oh I wanna be like them, but I was also thinking like, oh I don’t wanna be eating this food or having this skin.

I would think that but I didn’t know that that was bad or anything. It was all internalized. I thought I was like, much different from all the other Filipino girls in my city. I like Sofia Coppola, like oh wow I’m so edgy! I think a lot of the Filipinos I knew were really involved with the cultural scene and traditional dance, and I was like I don’t want to do that, I want to be way different from all these people.

What was the biggest change coming to New York for you, identity-wise?

I think towards the end of my high school career I was thinking about what it meant to be Filipino. But I wasn’t actively making the choice to be like, yeah that’s what I’m going to go to school and talk about. I think that was the biggest change for me, when this year was like…I always didn’t want to be considered a Filipino artist or have that be a thing for me, I just wanted to be an artist and blah blah blah, but it became like, this is what I am. And I need to make it for us, for my community. It’s so urgent for me now. It’s so urgent for me to make things, just to show…like, what it means for me to be Filipino to people who aren’t, but also to show Filipino faces and Filipino things for people who are, so they can see it. That’s the most important thing to me.

What do you think spurred that change to make things for Filipinos, where before it wasn’t as urgent but now it is?

I took Sight and Sound documentary and had all these weird ideas. Like I wanted to interview this guy who does holograms and do all these random things, but then I joined A/P/A BRIDGE and was learning all these things about my history and about Asian American activism. And I was like, what the heck why don’t I know this at all? You learn all these things and you realize there’s a precedent to you and to your whole history. Sometimes it’s not even about forgetting, it really just is ignorance. I didn’t know anything before that. I didn’t know we had this whole thing going on with Asian American activism. Learning about that made me think about just like my personal family and my experiences, and I just decided I wanted to talk about them more.

What is the importance of having Asian American activism for you?

While everyone is constantly saying that Asian Americans don’t do shit…which I think is true, I definitely think we’re not as active and we could definitely be more supportive…It’s outright false that we never did anything. It’s important to learn about that stuff because I remember when I was learning about it, I was like, oh my god I need to do more, 'cause it makes you feel like, I don’t want whatever they did to be for nothing. I want it to have a meaning, that their legacy is carried on. And yeah, it definitely inspires you. It’s kinda corny but it definitely inspired me to do more in the way that I can. I don’t really think of myself as an activist, because at least that word is more organizing, community building, all these things that I’m just like, I don’t know how to do that. For me I just know that film is the one thing that I’m good at. I’m not really good at many things except that. If I can use that for building, understanding, I think that is important to me.

“It’s so urgent for me to make things, just to show…like, what it means for me to be Filipino to people who aren’t, but also to show Filipino faces and Filipino things for people who are, so they can see it. That’s the most important thing to me.”

How long have you making films for?

I knew I wanted to be a filmmaker when I was 13. I grew up knowing I wanted to be something creative. I had a lot of different things–I wanted to be a Harlem Globetrotter! (laughs) They’re very inspiring. But I always made my own picture books and stuff like that, I would write and draw. Like, I really love storytelling and even when I was a kid I would tell these stories to my sister. But I knew I wasn’t good at prose, and I know I’m shit at drawing. So I was like, ok what’s visual and writing? When I was 12, 13 my sister got into Tumblr so then we were also trolling through Tumblr and learning about like, Sofia Coppola, Wes Anderson, Quentin Tarantino, all the white culture that you ever knew. So I was learning about this stuff and getting into film and I was like ok, yeah, I knew at 13 I’m going to be a filmmaker.

Has your family been supportive of that?

Oh yeah. There’s definitely that stereotype that being Asian and creative is like, no, but like, my mom loves it. I think she really really loves it. I always want her in my films, and she’s such a diva, so she really wants to be in it. I really truly see all of my identity because of my parents. Me being Filipino is inherited from them, and so if I lose that then I won’t know who I am anymore! It’s so corny, but it really truly does feel like that. [Amy: Yeah, I don’t know if this is an Asian thing or not but intergenerational things are super important.]

Do you feel that Tisch is a good environment to explore these issues in? Do you feel supported?

Yeah. I think it’s mostly because I found friends who also go through these things. I have collaborated a lot with people about these things, and that’s where I feel supported. I definitely have professors that I go to, I have one who’s Filipino and she’s great, I’m chill, we’re always in contact. I feel supported through her but I don’t really go into classes expecting that, that like oh, they’re going to understand me, they’re going to have a conversation about race! Also just because there’s so many instances that things happen and it doesn’t get addressed and it’s hard to be the only person of color there and to bring it up and like, just feels really weird. I think there are a lot of people in Tisch who are really good and who wanna support other people who go through these things.

Do you mostly do documentaries?

I don’t know. It’s hard because I feel like I haven’t made a lot of things outside of what I do in class, so like I started out in a documentary class and then I went into a filmmaking class. I think the work I have right now is pretty even, like documentary and film. I wouldn’t say I’m one or the other. I think I like everything. Like I wanna do everything. I wanna make an animated series, I don’t really know. Whatever serves the story best, whatever story I wanna tell is gonna happen. I don’t really wanna limit myself in that way.

Can you talk about any of the films you’ve made specifically? Like the process, or the meanings that you’re trying to convey?

I think the big thing of getting Filipino faces, bodies, and voices, is really important to do. For me personally, with my newest film it’s overt, like it starts off with a karaoke sequence, and that’s how I grew up, going to potlucks and having to sit and watch my aunties sing Whitney Houston and having to be there for five hours straight. So I wanna do that and create things that call back to those moments in my life and those experiences that I know a lot of other Filipino people experienced. I want them to see that, 'cause it’s really hard to see that in film. I had to relate to so many white people all my life, and I would like to not have to anymore. Especially for other Filipino people, I want them to not have to. I think with everything I’m making or trying to make, there’s little hints of that. It could either be super overt, like in my newest film there’s an old Filipino tale and people dancing tinikling and things that are so overtly that. But there are other hints where it’ll just be like about me taking a shower or something.

There’s another film I made that’s about, like you know when you’re in the shower and you go out of the shower but you kind of just sit in the bathroom? So it’s that moment where you’re just in your towel sitting on your toilet, and so the whole concept is this girl’s on the phone with her friend, her boyfriend, and her mom, and she cuts in between conversations. But during this time frame she’s also gonna tell her boyfriend she loves him that night 'cause she’s getting ready for a date. But she also realizes that she’s gay, and a lot goes on but it’s only set in the bathroom. But with my mom, she says like, anak, and these little Filipino words. In the film, she’s like, there’s a Filipino couple on House Hunters, did you see the episode? I know my mom would get excited about seeing a Filipino couple on House Hunters.

But that’s not like, Filipino commentary and me doing a whole analysis of Filipino experiences. Sometimes I just don’t wanna do that, and sometimes I do. I want as much of a volume that balances between the two, where it’s like this is overtly this, but also this isn’t my entire life, where it’s centered around me being Filipino, it’s also just like sometimes I…I don’t know! Go to Bobst! I really don’t. That’s a lie. But sometimes I just am just sitting in the shower and not thinking about being Filipino. I just exist as that and go about my day. But sometimes I’m just confronted with it and have to think about it. And so I think I want to make a bunch of different films that normalize the Asian American experience and not always about like, oh my, what is my strict dad going to think when I don’t wanna be a doctor?! I’m really tired of that and I think we all are. I think it’s important for me to have as much as possible. There’s just so many different kinds of people who are Asian.

“I had to relate to so many white people all my life, and I would like to not have to anymore. Especially for other Filipino people, I want them to not have to.”

Where do you think you get most of your inspiration from? You said when you were younger you got it from a lot of white culture…

It’s really interesting, 'cause like, I remember when I was younger and into Sofia Coppola, Quentin Tarantino and Wes Anderson, my writing was that. It was just like, straight ripped from Fight Club, I wasn’t actually writing anything original. I was like, oh, what are white people on Tumblr gonna like? I’m gonna write for them. Like, I wasn’t writing from my experiences. I think a lot of things I write from are from stupid conversations I have with my friends. I don’t really know where it comes from, but I feel like writing is so natural for me, like, I can beat it out in an hour. Dialogue is super easy to me.

I feel like I’m always noticing things about people or trying to understand things about people and trying to be as empathetic as possible. I think when you are like that, writing people and humans is super easy if you’re constantly caring about them. Like, oh, they say this in a funny way or they say this one phrase in a funny way. There’s this kid, the other day, my friend asked him if he smoked, and he was like, 'Big time.’ Like, who says big time? (laughs) Like little things I like, he just looked straight off into the horizon and said 'big time.’ He wasn’t even looking at us, like, what are you thinking about? Jesus, Robert! It was so funny and I don’t know, I’m so interested in other people and want to know them more. But I don’t wanna be like, writing is so easy! Oh God, I was born with it! Like no, it’s obviously very hard but I think it’s also just 'cause I take so much time to understand other people.

Do you want to go into screenwriting?

Yeah, I definitely thought I was gonna be a TV writer. I’m keeping my options open, I think I definitely want to keep writing though. I think writing is the easiest for me. I just don’t know how to approach it and be like, ok world, I’m a writer, take me. I don’t know how to do that, so I just try to…I do sound design and I do other things and hopefully one thing I can write and direct and be super in control of everything that I make.

“Sometimes I just am just sitting in the shower and not thinking about being Filipino. I just exist as that and go about my day. But sometimes I’m just confronted with it and have to think about it.”

What has your experience been like in the casting of your films? And getting a crew?

I haven’t had to be in charge of a really big production, so I’m just like naturally, hey you are my friend, will you do this? So naturally, people who are in my crew and my classes were people of color. That’s just who I gravitate towards, the person who’s just gonna understand me the best. A lot of them are queer, and I don’t know, when that exists already I don’t have to think about it too much because I know I want to work with you guys. I have like, one white friend.

Next semester is when I do my 'big production class’ and I have to make a film, and I definitely will be conscious of that because I’ve definitely been on sets where it was like basically all white people and that sucks. I did recently try to cast Filipino people which was super tough. I tried to go on Backstage and look for Filipino people but there was nothing. There were also people who were Chinese American, and I was like, that’s not really what I’m looking for. I’m kinda scared because for my next film there is a little Filipino girl in it, and I’ve been trying to think like, is that even possible to ~find~ her?…Who is she? (laughs) So I’ve just been trying to figure out if this can even be made in this time frame at this school. Is that feasible? And it also involves a Filipino teenager that I have to think about also because I can’t just act in all of my films, even though that’s how it is right now, because there isn’t really anyone else. Finding a Filipino person is difficult when everything I wanna make right now revolves around that.

Watch one of Shalemar's films here.

Follow Shalemar’s insta here and see more of her work here.

Interview by Elaine Lo and Amy Ni