CRS Presents documentary film "Anna May Wong: In Her Own Words" Nov 18, 2011
8 – 9:30PM
CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) presents FILM+VIDEO SHOW AND TELL #5: “Anna May Wong: In Her Own Words,” a one-hour documentary by Yunah Hong. Ms. Hong will be present to introduce the film, discuss her efforts to get it aired on public television, and take questions from the audience following the screening. The screening is free but seating is limited.
Anna May Wong (1905-1961) was the first Chinese American movie star. The daughter of a laundryman, she courageously chose a life that was a radical departure from familial and cultural expectations. Her story is one of resistance—of pushing back against close-mindedness and claiming space. This she did with enough glamour, style and humor to hold her own with the greatest stars of her day.
She first starred, at age 17, in “Toll of the Sea,” a silent version of Madame Butterfly. Her best-remembered film is “Shanghai Express” with Marlene Dietrich. She made dozens of films in Hollywood, London and Berlin. She was glamorous; photographers flocked to take her portrait. She was worldly and articulate, with friends like Carl van Vechten, Evelyn Waugh and Paul Robeson. Yet she spent most of her career typecast either as a painted doll or a scheming Dragon Lady.
Director Yunah Hong moved to New York from Korea to do graduate work. She has made eight films. All of them focus, in one way or another, on Asian American women.
The film was funded in part by grants from the Asian Women Giving Circle, the Center for Asian American Media, the Jerome Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts and had its world premiere at the Pusan International Film Festival in Korea in October, 2010. It makes its American debut at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival.