TIFF 2023 Short Film Reviews: ‘Sarajin’ and ‘The Ballad of Tita and the Machines’ Show the Realities of Pursuing the American Dream Today

Indeed’s belief in the universality of talent  given the paucity of equal opportunities served as the reason behind the creation of the ‘Rising Voices’ program. Created in collaboration with Lena Waithe, Hillman Grad Productions, Ventureland, and 271 Films, the program aims to discover, invest in, and share stories created by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) filmmakers and storytellers. At this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, ‘Rising Voices’ premiered four short films: “My Nights Glow Yellow,” “Last Days of the Lab,” “Sarajin,” and “The Ballad of Tita and the Machine.” All these short films revolve around the idea that jobs have the power to change us all.

Here’s what we thought of the two shorts, “Sarajin” and “The Ballad of Tita and the Machines.”

‘Sarajin’: Despite Climate Change, the Pursuit of the American Dream Keeps On

“Sarajin” (Korean: “사라진,” lit., “disappearing”) follows an immigrant fishing family who reside in Alaska. In this short film co-written and directed by Justin Kim WooSŏk, snow crabs have disappeared; and since their livelihood depends on the crabs, the patriarch DongSu has spent the past five weeks trying to catch snow crabs, to no avail. 

With their livelihood at stake, DongSu’s wife JaeJeong gives him an ultimatum: stay and keep on waiting for the crabs to return, or leave and live with JaeJeong’s sister who resides in Atlanta. Their differing takes on how the family should stay together are summed up thus:

“How much longer are you asking us to wait here?”

“JaeJeong, the ocean will never fail us.”

Basing the film on his personal experiences as a first-generation Korean American immigrant; WooSŏk’s exploration of the themes of displacement, as well as humans’ ever-changing relationship with the natural world, permeates throughout this film. And given how science has proven that the loss of sea ice harms snow crabs, “Sarajin” highlights the relentless pressure of climate change. 

This, more importantly, touches upon the challenges in the immigrant experience, and how it makes their pursuit of the American Dream doubly hard. Nonetheless, such experiences only hone one’s resilience to keep on, climate change be damned.

‘The Ballad of Tita and the Machines’: A Defiant Middle Finger to Automation

In Miguel Angel Caballero’s “The Ballad of Tita and the Machines,” we see Tita (Laura Patalano), an elderly strawberry picker in a farm in near-future California. Every day, all immigrant workers must submit to health screening, courtesy of a robotic technology that assesses each worker’s efficiency at work. 

Tita fails this screening one day, prompting her to reluctantly hire an AI humanoid to substitute for her — in exchange for 60% of her salary. For some reason, however, all the AI workers provided to her all malfunction in their own ways. This attracts the curiosity of the creators of AI technology, who tell Tita that it marked the first time the company deployed AI substitutes for field work.

Incisive Commentary and Humor

Born to Mexican immigrant farm workers, Writer/Director Miguel Angel Caballero clearly had considerable inspiration for this short film. And told from an LGBTQ perspective, the film portrays the inevitability of mortality amid the rise of artificial intelligence and the looming threat of automation. However, for all intents and purposes, the thing that stands out in “The Ballad of Tita and the Machines” is that it’s really funny. A particular scene involving a conversation among migrant workers shows the importance of skilled labor entrusted to humans instead of AI workers. I mean, imagine a humanoid with melting eyes while cleaning the house due to the chemical reaction from the bleach it used. Or a seamstress AI that keeps on stabbing themselves with the needle.

When the proverbial smoke clears, “The Ballad of Tita and the Machines” manages to balance incisive commentary and humor, all the while stubbornly raising its middle finger to automation.

The Rising Voices program screened at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. Both ‘Sarajin’ and ‘The Ballad of Tita and the Machines’ qualified for next year’s Academy Awards.