HOLLYWOOD CHINESE: THE CHINESE IN AMERICAN FILM Special Screenings

Produced, directed, written and edited by Academy Award® nominee and triple Sundance award-winning filmmaker Arthur Dong (LICENSED TO KILL, COMING OUT UNDER FIRE, FORBIDDEN CITY, U.S.A.), HOLLYWOOD CHINESE presents 11 of the community’s most accomplished Chinese American film arti sts sharing personal accounts of working in film.

Ang Lee, Wayne Wang, Joan Chen, David Henry Hwang, Justin Lin, B.D. Wong, Nancy Kwan, Tsai Chin, Lisa Lu, Wayne Wang, Justin Lin, and Amy Tan are among the storytellers who have wrestled with being the “other” in Hollywood. The film is punctuated with a dazzling treasure trove of clips from over 90 movies, dating from 1890s paper prints up to the current new wave of Asian American cinema. During the documentary’s production, Dong discovered two remarkable nitrate reels of what is now thought to be the first Asian American film ever made, THE CURSE OF THE QUON GWON (1916).

At once humorous, maddening and inspiring, the film weaves a rich and complicated tapestry, one marked by unforgettable performances and groundbreaking films, but also one tainted by a tangled history of race and representation.