Still: How to Catch a Butterfly - Kiriko Mechanicus 

In How to Catch a Butterfly* (prod. Docmakers), selected for SXSW Documentary Short Competition, Dutch-Japanese filmmaker and artist Kiriko Mechanicus embarks upon a study of the Western obsession with Asian women, at the same time examining her own obsession with Robert Aaron Long who, in 2021, shot eight Asian women in massage parlours in Atlanta, Georgia. The murders were committed, allegedly, to suppress Long’s uncontrollable sexual desire.

In the film, Mechanicus argues that Western men are attracted to a servile and obedient Asian female stereotype, while at the same time feeling superior to the polite and, supposedly, more timid, essentially non-masculine, Asian male. 

The persona that Mechanicus herself presents, however, suggests a polar opposite. While she exudes certainty and confidence, with an online presence that is at times provocative, Robert Aaron Long reveals a kind of pathetic, masturbatory timidity, at least within the courtroom footage of him that we see. 

“I think that's a very true observation,” Mechanicus responds to the suggestion. “One reason why I wanted to make this film was, of course, that I wanted to show the world as a form of manifestation that me as a person, but also me as a representative of Asian women, can be more than just this submissive woman that I've been for a very large part of my life.”

“And I think because power play is such an essential role within this sexual game that is being played, I think it was also a very exciting moment for me to take an opportunity to really take control over not only my own narrative, but also the way that I show myself to the world.”

“But still, when it comes down to the facts, I think I found a lot of similarities in my life and in his [Long’s] life, where we were both kind of meandering in this insecurity and this identification that we didn't really think was ours. I guess he found a very aggressive way to jump out of that. For him, it was killing those women.”

To a great degree, Long’s was an extreme reaction to something Mechanicus feels is latent within the sexual relationships between Asian women and Western men - the inevitable connection between sex and violence.

“Within this world, we don't have - especially men - the means to talk or communicate about this, or to talk about desire, about sensibility, about all these freedoms that can be had within a sexual realm,” she says. “And because we don't have the words for this, I think, one of the primary reasons that led Robert [Long] to do what he did was because he had a lot of questions unanswered about his desires. And in a world where there are no words for unanswered questions, he has learned that a gun is an answer to his pain and his frustration.”

“There's a lot of things in this world that have led him to do this, which are beyond his power and control,” she adds. “Of course, it's a mad thing that he did. But he was also a 21-year-old boy caged within expectations that the world had pressured upon him.”

Not that Mechanicus is asking for audiences to feel any sense of empathy for Long (who is on death row and will probably never get to see the documentary). “That's not my primary goal for this film,” she says. “But what I do hope is that people will use the film as an opportunity to look at their own sexual life and maybe also their own way of how they perceive certain ethnicities within a sexual context. And I think it invites viewers to re-examine their true desires, or maybe the desires that they have and which don't align with the values that they have.”

“I think there is so much secrecy around this, and I hope it sparks new conversations about [people’s] private and personal lives,” Mechanicus signs off.

How to Catch a Butterfly world premieres March 14 in SXSW Documentary Short Competition. Find the complete Dutch line up for SXSW here. And more information about the festival in general can be found here. 

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*film supported by the Netherlands Film Fund