Kulap Vilaysack, surrounded by her aunts on the steps of her grandparents’ stupa.
A comic book “origin story” explains how superheroes discover their special powers or abilities. In her documentary, Origin Story, Kulap Vilaysack discovers her own powers by investigating and embracing her family history and identity.
When she was 14 years old, Vilaysack found out that the man she called “Dad” was not her biological father. Eventually, Vilaysack learned that her mother had fled Laos for the United States with her biological father, who later returned to Laos. But Vilaysack’s strained relationship with her mother prevented her from knowing much more of that history.
Podcasting fans know Vilaysack as the former co-host of Who Charted? on the Earwolf comedy podcast network. She also served as the showrunner on the series Bajillion Dollar Properties, which she describes as her “film school experience” that helped her shape into its final form the hours of footage that she shot for Origin Story.
Vilaysack contemplated different ways to explore her past, even briefly considering a one-person performance piece. She determined that any creative treatment of her family history would need to move the story forward, and that she needed her family members to speak for themselves.
In 2013, she took a camera crew to Minnesota to interview her parents. “I had to rough myself up because I was going to ask questions that I hadn’t before,” Vilaysack explains in an interview with Isthmus. “I didn’t know if my parents would open up on camera, since they don’t really open up in person, without a camera.”
The strongest sequences in Origin Story emerge when Vilaysack simply allows the cameras to capture her interactions with her family. In Minnesota she butts heads with her mother while reconnecting with her extended family. In Laos she meets her biological father while discovering her roots. She eventually works out the tension between being the interviewer and the subject of her film. “When I’m interviewing my dad in Minnesota, the footage of me behind the camera was shot by my producer on her iPhone. My intention was not to be on camera,” she explains. “When we were editing, everyone said, ‘We need more of you.’”
It wasn’t easy for her to share everything that shows up in Origin Story, especially scenes with her mother. “The conversation goes from the highs of joking around, to confusion and frustration. It’s uncomfortable for me. I’m yelling at my mom. At times, I don’t like my behavior,” she says, “You couldn’t write a scene like that to capture the good and bad tension that we have.”
Ultimately, Vilaysack found the storytelling process to be cathartic, as she forced herself to address issues that had been the source of pain. “It definitely helped me evolve and to shift my point of view about my identity, and to embrace it. As scary as shining a light on my family’s dysfunction and secrets has been, it has set me free, and I would like that for other people as well.”
Vilaysack will introduce a free screening of Origin Story at UW Cinematheque on April 25 at 7 p.m. in 4070 Vilas Hall.
