Is it possible to forget? That question burns in Topher Horman’s raw fantastical allegory ‘Thanksgiving, this year,’ a feature-length community art film produced for less than $10,000 and involving more than 300 people from the Salt Lake City creative arts scene.

The 94-minute film centers around Zoe who breaks free from a mental institution, flees west with her siblings, then struggles against a society of fallen angels who have carried out a “cultural evolution” by crushing free will. As Horman describes it, “and then all hell breaks loose … literally.”

And, embedded in this postmodern fantasy, packed with original rock music by local musicians, is a subversive call to arms intended for China’s teenagers to resurrect the social memory of Tiananmen. In fact, the film’s free, public premiere coincides with the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square uprising – June 4 at 7 p.m. at the Tower Theatre.

This highly ambitious project is the first film for Horman, who has directed stadium-scale shows for many sporting venues and has put together the highly successful ‘Fear No Film’ component of the annual Utah Arts Festival.

While the film starts at quite a plodding pace, the voice, pacing, and action come together with an organic sense of urgency especially during the last third of the story. Horman effectively plumbs the counterpoint answer to the should-we-forget question. And, there are subtle ironical parallels for young people in Salt Lake City who also wrestle with personal choices in a community where a particular form of institutional control predominates.

Horman makes effective connections in his parable. Twenty years out, those who survived the Tiananmen uprising, especially protestors living in exile, know precisely what the Chinese government’s suppression of all public discussion has wrought. And, the government has been chillingly effective, wiping away nearly all traces of social memory. While the media focused on Tiananmen, many scholars have documented a democratic movement at the time that flourished in more than 370 cities involving more than 100 million people. They note that today’s Chinese teenagers are like any others, placated and distracted easily by consumerist impulses of fast food and famous-name brands. The allegorical parallels of these elements pop up in unmistakably consistent fashion throughout the film.

Horman’s work is well timed for its premiere. As the anniversary approaches, there is a small yet strongly committed undercurrent of intellectuals who ask that the government ends it long silence on the crackdown. Just yesterday (May 21), Reuters reported that a former senior Chinese censor has claimed a major role in recording purged leader Zhao Ziyang’s memoirs that decry the quelling of pro-democracy protests.

“As time has passed, this massive secret has become a massive vacuum. Everyone avoids it, skirts around it,” Cui Weiping, a Beijing-based academic, told a group of nearly two dozen participants who met in Beijing earlier this month and who included some of the nation’s most prominent liberal scholars, among them Qian Liqun, a former professor at Beijing University.

“This secret is in fact a toxin poisoning the air around us and affecting our whole lives and spirit,” says Cui.

Horman’s postmodern senses are well placed. ‘Thanksgiving, this year’ is about the choices we make about who we love, where we live and work, whom we are friends with, and, most significantly, who we are. Zoe and her siblings realize that choices are never easily made, especially when one is confronted with so many options in a complex integrated quilt of social, cultural, demographic, ethnic, racial, economic, political, and ideological factors.

The Marxist, for example, would argue one’s freedom of choice is driven in large part by economic, ideological, and legal factors. Choice is possible, yet constrained. Taking a psychoanalytical perspective, one makes subconscious and unconscious choices about desired objects whether they’re real and concrete like people, places, and things or whether they’re abstracts of love, happiness, freedom, and equality.

In ‘Thanksgiving, this year,’ Horman invites a deeper perspective. We choose how to see and interpret our reality – an enormously difficult challenge because everyone has a unique, idiosyncratic interpretation of reality that may or may not coincide with others. The fantastical elements of the film, therefore, should then bring the viewer to question the absurdity of the official ‘amnesia’ promulgated by the ‘institution’ or, in the real case, by the Chinese government.

And, the film’s rawness underscores the validity of these themes. While awkward in pacing, the film reflects an impressive sense of resourcefulness. The music editing is a key strength, in particular. Of the music, Horman says, “I feel this is my musical postcard to the world, my ‘remember when’ for the local bands I’ve liked over the years.”

A coffee house scene is transformed into a mall scene. A friend’s high-rise office serves conveniently and effectively. A parade comes together with reasonable credibility, especially as it was filmed on a 100-degree day in a mall parking lot with more than 100 extras wearing winter coats and hats. Viewers also see a fire dancing troupe and the award-winning Hillcrest High School dancers.

Horman’s organizing efforts are to be commended as well. The cast includes Ardean Watts, one of the best-known figures in the history of the Utah Symphony and Ron Frederickson of the University of Utah’s theater department. Both relish their roles as sinister leaders of the ‘institution.’ And, there are Klea Blackhurst, Cassi Thompson, and Joe Pitti, all with impressive performance curriculum vitae of their own.

Horman is submitting the film to various festivals for consideration.