A Long Held Breath
by Siu Kee Tsang (he/him) and Adam Fergler (he/him)
What began as a simple creative endeavour during the height of the pandemic became a trust exercise between partners Adam and Siu Kee exploring Siu Kee’s deeply personal feelings about his heritage and experience of growing up in the UK. The end result was a film with an unintended poignance but with a powerful message of hope for others.
Below is a transcript of how ‘A Long Held Breath’ came to be.
SK: For most of my life I felt unseen. In recent years, I started to reflect more on my past and the choices I made, which forced me to confront some uncomfortable truths. It has been difficult to talk about, but I feel I have taken the first important step of acknowledging my experience and accepting its validity.
AF: In late 2020, I set out to make a short film very quickly, without even a hint of a subject matter in mind. Siu Kee kindly offered to help and we set about discussing possible ideas.
SK: I can’t for the life of me act—at least not on camera—so the only way I could have done this was to be completely honest and talk about a subject matter that was meaningful to me. The only authentic story I had to share was the struggle to find my identity.
AF: It was an exciting but terrifying idea for both of us. It could easily have become too difficult. I was hyper-aware that it wasn’t my story to tell, especially in light of some of the cultural sensitivities we covered. I was terrified of being exploitative or invasive. But it was the most honest thing we could make. It became a trust exercise for us as a couple, requiring leaps of faith on both our parts.
SK: We sat down and talked about my life for a very long time. It almost felt like I was rambling. At times I could not see how it would be of any use as a film.
AF: He ended up telling me more in two evenings than I’d heard in all the time we’d been together. It was revealing and heartbreaking. After those mammoth conversations, we had to decide what to keep and what to leave out. Honestly, the final narrative in the film only scratches the surface, but it has strength in its brevity. My hope is that viewers will fill in the gaps with their own experiences, or reflect on how their decisions might have affected the people around them.
SK: Initially I was very hesitant to make this film. I was worried about what my family would think and how it would affect them if they ever saw it. In the end, with a lot of encouragement and counselling, I realised that I needed to do it for myself and this was my story.
AF: There are countless similar stories a world over just waiting to be told. I feel proud to have worked with Siu Kee on finding a way of expressing his story so beautifully. Our project came about almost by accident, but its message—Siu Kee’s message—will doubtless touch, educate, and empower other people. I don’t see it as a tale exclusively for consumption by ESEA or LGBTQ+ communities either, even if it obviously has most resonance there. Everyone has something they can learn and we’ve all collectively got a long way to go. Siu Kee says it best when he suggests the world needs more awareness, transparency and kindness.
SK: I hope that by sharing this story, other people—especially in the ESEA community—will know that they are not alone. I have always felt very alien in the UK even though I was born and raised here. Until now, we didn’t really have a platform to express our views but that is all changing and I am excited (and nervous) to make my contribution, however small.
Watch the film below.
