Unplated: An interview with Roqué Marcelo
On community, identity, and place, and the power of storytelling in film
This conversation is part of the Unplated series, a collection of interviews with folks whose work intersects with food, but who work outside culinary spheres. My hope is that these conversations not only spark your curiosity, but help you think about how what you eat is connected to the world well beyond your plate.
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Roqué Marcelo is a multimedia artist specializing in piano-based music, live performance, telling stories, and filmmaking. He currently lives with his partner in rural Middle Tennessee. I first encountered his work while at a fermentation residency hosted by Sandor Katz, and was immediately struck by his powerful filmmaking and his use of place and personal narrative in storytelling. Here, he talks about his work as a filmmaker and a musician, as well as how food and identity connect to his practice.
JS: First of all, I'd love for you to tell readers a bit about yourself. What work do you do? Where in the world are you? Any favorite hobbies?
RM: I am a queer Filipino living in the woods of Middle Tennessee. The work I do grows out of my skills as a multimedia artist. I am a writer, musician, composer, singer, songwriter, photographer, visual artist, filmmaker, web designer, dancer, and performer.
In addition to my freelance work as a videographer, web designer, video editor, and photographer, I am the Director of Programs for the Chinkapin Craftstead Land Project, which is a nonprofit organization based out of Woodbury, TN, that oversees the care of over 300 acres of forests and hosts arts programming nine months out of the year.
I love to sing and play music on my piano and ukulele, as well as create visual art—but these are formative practices for my work. Outside of that, I love to care for houseplants, go on long walks in the woods, ride my bicycle, and read A LOT of books.
JS: I remember first encountering your filmmaking in 2018 while I was staying up at Sandor's, and I was struck by your powerful storytelling and your ability to convey emotion and quickly build familiarity with your characters. What is your guiding perspective, or perspectives, as a filmmaker? Are there experiences or parts of your life that inform how you approach the craft of filmmaking?
RM: When I was a kid, I remember thinking that there are two professions I would love to pursue as an adult. One was as a performing musician, and the other was as a film director. In some strange way, I feel as if I have always had it in me to become a filmmaker.
I quickly understood in film school that filmmaking requires the capacity to see how multiple moving parts synchronize, synthesize, and contrast each other throughout a visual work. The layers of color, movement, texture, composition, narrative structure, pacing, dialogue, mood, language, music, and emotion all need to coalesce in some meaningful and substantive way. Whatever I determine must be the centerpiece of a film—whether it is the emotional dimension, the characters, or a specific topic/issue—everything in the visual and auditory planes must support what that is. From the very first shot that the viewer sees and hears, they are pointed toward whichever direction that centerpiece lives. I leave no stone unturned and no nuance left to chance. This is how I develop characters and build familiarity. I use every moment, subtle and otherwise, in the film to build my case.
Before becoming a filmmaker, I took on multilayered projects that helped me gain the perspectives and skills I needed. I’ve mounted my own multimedia and performative art exhibits, and I once worked as the Youth Programs Director of a small LGBT youth nonprofit organization in which I was responsible for several programs and numerous volunteers. One formative artistic work that I feel was instrumental was when I wrote, co-produced, recorded, and released my first full album of music. The songs were written within a five year timespan, and the album itself was a two-year effort to complete. It was the most personal, layered, and complex artistic work I had ever taken on. I felt like I mostly did not know what I was doing, but I did it anyway. Looking back, all of these instances were necessary stepping stones for my future work as a filmmaker.
JS: Your film Embracing the Ephemeral is one of my favorite films, and taught me so much about the Filipino community in Middle Tennessee. Can you tell me a bit about what went in to making the film? Why was it so important to include cooking scenes in it?
RM: The seed for Embracing the Ephemeral was one that had been germinating in my head for a long time. It grew out of a sense of loss that I was feeling. My Filipino immigrant family has now lived in the US for many years. There are now successive generations in my family. I see how our younger ones are growing up, and I understand that they actively experience an American context of the world as opposed to the Filipino upbringing, sensibility, and community that I had as a child and teenager. The specific kind of richness that my native culture gave me is something I wish I could pass on to these younger generations, but I know that, as with anything else, nothing lasts forever. With every succeeding generation, the past grows further away. I wanted to convey these feelings in this film.
As a college student, an opportunity came along to make this film as my honors college thesis project, and as part of this process, I qualified to apply for a grant to fund it. When I found out that I was awarded the maximum amount available, it was full steam ahead.
I wanted the film to focus on storytelling and to incorporate perspectives from different generations. My family and my Filipino friends in my neighborhood graciously agreed to participate.
As with many other ways of life, food is an integral part of Filipino culture, and Filipino food is delicious. I grew up eating tradition Filipino dishes, and I associate all of the flavors with my childhood family gatherings and many happy memories. Food is the common denominator in my family and brings everyone together. There was no way I could make this film without incorporating food.
JS: You live in a tight-knit community, and I want to touch on how this network of people connects with your practice. How does community impact what we do, and how we work, as creatives?
RM: Overall, I feel like the relationship between creatives and community needs to be mutually supportive and reciprocal as much as possible. While a community of people can be a nurturing audience for an artist’s work, the artist, in return, can engage with the community in numerous supportive ways.
Helping with neighborhood projects or with planning events, for example, as well as maintaining nurturing relationships with families, individuals, and even other artists are great ways for an artist to give back to a community that has attended an artist’s shows or purchased their work.
If an artist chooses to share their work in some meaningful way, reciprocal engagement with a community must be part of that equation. Everyone benefits from the mutual enrichment, generosity, and compassion that results.
JS: What, to you, is the power of including food in storytelling? How can we use food to make our ideas and stories resonate more deeply with the people who encounter our work?
RM: Food is as universal as the air we breathe. It is something that every human can relate to on numerous levels. Both the food itself, its flavors, and the customs with which we consume it are what make it so vital to virtually every culture and country on Earth. There are subtle and significant ways that food can be part of storytelling. It can be part of the narrative fabric of a story in the ways that it defines every day life such as mealtimes or even food scarcity. It can be used as a way that characters engage and placate each other.
Storytellers can also choose to tell their stories to people over heaping plates of warm, comforting food when gathering together. It is often much easier to be receptive to others when satisfying and flavorful food is involved.
JS: I want to wrap up by asking about gardening as it connects to your work. I love how you capture the magic of gardening in your work. How are filmmaking and gardening connected for you? How does film help us capture the essence of the plants we tend to and work with, in a way other media may not?
RM: Ever since I was a young child, the art and practice of gardening has always been a component of my life. My mom always kept an large collection of tropical house plants and grew a vegetable garden wherever we lived. She is an active gardener to this day. My partner MaxZine is a lifelong gardener as well. I see him tending to our garden every day, and we benefit from the nutrition of fresh veggies and seeing the beauty of our flowering plants.
In my mind, gardening is the perfect analogy for how any artist should approach their craft. Artists can nurture their work in the same way that gardeners care for their plants. It is done with love, diligence, tender care, consistency, and vigilance. What results from this kind of approach is a thriving, blooming, and dynamic result. Gardening is a way of life and philosophy that can be replicated and applied to virtually any profession or creative endeavor.
Lastly, film can have a way of magnifying its subject matter and can certainly do so toward gardening. A lens can create more intimacy between the viewer and the subjects on the screen. Through the motion and texture that film is capable of, it can convey a more accurate and nuanced portrayal of what it means to be a gardener and to be enriched by the practice. Because of the possibilities of narrative arcs, music and emotion, and dazzling cinematography, the art of filmmaking is well suited to capture the heart, soul, and beauty of plants and gardens.
You can see his films and art at www.roquemarcelo.com, or support his work on Patreon.
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