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program notes and times
COMBINATION PLATTER
Directed, co-written, co-edited, and produced by Tony Chan, USA, 1993;
84 minutes
A Chinese restaurant in Flushing is the setting for COMBINATION PLATTER, the story of Robert, a thoughtful, affectionate young Hong
Kong immigrant desperately seeking a green card, as are several of his
co-workers. His friend encourages him to find an American wife, but Robert
doesn't feel comfortable with non-Asian women. This charming and graceful
evocation of the experiences of a would-be "new American"was the directorial
debut of 23-year-old Tony Chan, who provides us with a poignant and humorous
view of what goes on behind the swinging kitchen door. (A New Directors /
New Films selection, 1993)
with
NATIVES
Directed by Jesse Lerner and Scott Sterling, USA, 1991; 25 minutes
In Lerner and Sterling's film about the San Diego
anti-immigrant movement, startling black and white photography evokes the
divisive and passionate issues of borders, race, American nativists and their
professed love of country. NATIVES exposes irony and
contradiction: intensely emotional patriotism for America and democracy
expressed in antidemocratic forms, sentimentally and with hostility.
Monday, October 14: 2, 4, and 6 pm
...AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS
Written, photographed and directed by Louis Malle, USA,
1986; 80 minutes
Louis Malle takes his camera to New York, Texas, Mississippi
and Florida to document a fascinating cross section of immigrants in America:
Cambodian refugees, a Cuban NASA astronaut, an Indian family running a chain of
motels in the South, resettled Guatemalan dictator Somoza and his family, a
cross-country runner and revelers in Brooklyn's Little Odessa are among the
many fascinating folk he encounters. Their histories and hopes, their varied
and unique cultures and their new American identities, their English lessons
and their citizenship tests are conveyed with an admiring and amusing eye for
human detail. Malle's fluid and consummate filmmaking makes this quest an
entertaining and moving celebration of his fellow immigrants to this
country.
Wednesday, October 16: 2 and 6:15 pm
ALAMBRISTA!
Directed, written, and photographed by Robert M. Young, USA, 1977; 110 minutes
Robert M. Young's career has been committed to making small,
provocative films about socially important and/or controversial subjects. These
are movies conceived with conscience, comparable to Ken Loach's output, so
Young's work doesn't turn up much on screens in heartland malls, more's the
pity. His directorial debut, Alambrista!, won the Camera d'Or at
1977's Cannes Film Festival. Roberto (Domingo Ambriz) illegally crosses the
U.S. / Mexican border to find a new life in the promised land. What awaits him,
a boy who feels he must be the "man of his family," is heartbreak and
exploitation. (With Ned Beatty, Edward James Olmos, Trinidad Silva, et al.)
Wednesday, October 16: 4 pm
Thursday, October 17: 9 pm
THE EMIGRANTS (restored print)
Directed, photographed, co-written, and edited by Jan Troell, Sweden, 1971; 148 minutes
In 19th-century Sweden, a small community of farmers flees
backbreaking work on land that isn't their own, as well as a killing famine.
They take ship for America, and after enduring a brutal Atlantic passage,
continue by train, Mississippi paddleboat, and finally on foot. This sweeping
saga--adapted from the novels of Vilhelm Moberg--fetches up in Minnesota where
these intrepid souls stake their claim and put down roots. Max von Sydow and
Liv Ullmann "parent" the questers in this absorbing film about the unquenchable
thirst for a new land (the saga continued in Troell's sequel The New
Land). (Oscar nominations for best picture, best director, and best
actress.)
Wednesday, October 16: 8 pm
Jan Troell will introduce THE EMIGRANTS
EMIGRATION, NY: THE STORY OF AN EXPULSION
Written and directed by Egon Humer, Austria 1994-1995;
Part I: 88 minutes and Part II: 89 minutes
Twelve New Yorkers who emigrated from Austria after the
Anschluss of 1938 to escape the Nazi death machine tell an astonishing
collective story that gives a human face to a contemporary tragic history. Amos
Vogel comes to the United States via Cuba, and ends up founding the New York
Film Festival.... Doris Orgel and her family, aided by a Catholic priest,
escape by way of a Yugoslav "vacation" so that Doris comes to grow up on the
Lower East Side.... These compelling sagas ring with truth, and the memories
of these émigrés make us reconsider fundamental human notions
about life and death, betrayal and loss, home and belonging. Meticulous and
rigorous in construction, minimal and unobtrusive in approach, Humer combines
individual histories with interviews, home movies and photographs to make a
monumental film that brims with tragedy, pathos, humanity and courage.
Thursday, October 17: 2 pm
Saturday, October 19: 8:15 pm
BONTOC EULOGY
Produced, written, directed and edited by Marlon E.Fuentes, USA, 1995; 56 minutes
An original, striking film that is part personal history, part
detective story, BONTOC EULOGY is about a filmmaker who goes in search of a grandfather who disappeared after being exhibited as an
anthropological specimen at the 1904 St. Louis World Fair. A fusion of rare
archival footage and photographs, sound recordings and dramatic recreations,
the story is told from the point of view of the narrator, a Filipino living in
America at present, and Markod, an Igarot warrior held captive at the fair.
EULOGY's director offers an historical insight into his own life
as an immigrant, refracted through the lens of colonialism, race, and a bizarre
example of cultural abduction and social voyeurism.
with
FIRE ON THE WATER
Produced and directed by Robert Hillmann, USA, 1982; 56 minutes
A nonfiction film about the confrontation between local shrimp
fishermen and newly arrived Vietnamese competitors in Galveston Bay, Texas, Fire teems with tangled relationships and dramatic twists and turns. Shot in 1981, the film follows
sensational, black-and-white media reports on clashes between relocated
refugees and the longtime residents, many of whom were in the Ku Klux Klan.
Hillmann's powerful drama centers on the slight but tenacious Hung Nguyen and
his protector, burly Jim Craig, a local mechanic; Klan chief James Stanfield;
and fourth-generation shrimp fisherman Johnny Valentino, all of whom come
across with astonishing complexity.
Friday, October 18: 2 pm
Sunday, October 20: 9:15 pm
MY CRASY LIFE
Jean-Pierre Gorin, GB, 1991; 95 minutes
"CRASY with an 's' not a 'z.' Gangsters' spelling, not
Webster's. A...film on the life and thoughts of the members of a Long Beach,
California, Samoan Crip Gang...."
-- Jean-Pierre Gorin
A film that takes us through the discordant rhythms of raw street talk
into the unnerving riddle of gang life, and inside its informed sense of
inevitable tragedy, without offering or imposing agendas, explanations or
cliches. Absent, therefore, are the diagnosis of a social ill, the presence of
a denouement and a synthetic catharisis.
-- Alberto Garcia
Sunday, October 20: 7:30 pm
EAT A BOWL OF TEA
Wayne Wang, USA, 1989; 104 minutes
In this charming, astute comedy (adapted from a novel by Louis
Chu), director Wang tells the story of a very "American" Chinese-American GI
(Russell Wong) who returns to China just after WWII to meet and bring back a
wife (Cora Miao). (Chinese men were prohibited from bringing their wives into
the U.S. between 1924 and 1945.) EAT A BOWL OF TEA brings
unusual wisdom and insight to problems that arise from the clash of two very
different cultures.
Monday, October 21: 2 and 6 pm
A ONE WAY TICKET / Un Pasaje de Ida
Directed and produced by Agliberto Melendez, Dominican
Republic, 1988; 92 minutes
Based on a true story, this first feature to be made in the
Dominican Republic follows a group of men who have paid a high price to be
smuggled into the U.S. aboard a ship bound for Miami. Melendez imbues his film
with a powerful sense of outrage--at both the poverty that drives Dominicans
and other Latin Americans from their homes, desperately seeking any means of
escape, and at those who greedily profit from their misery. The actors in
A One Way Ticket are splendid--and are largely nonprofessionals.
(Shown in New Directors / New Films, 1989)
Monday, October 21: 4 and 8:30 pm
PAPAPAPA
Directed by Alex Rivera, USA, 1995; 28 minutes, video
The filmmaker describes his film as a humorous experimental
documentary focusing on immigration and the assimilation of vegetable (!) and
human bodies. Papapapa follows the potato as it immigrates north
from Incan Peru and becomes transformed in the process. At the same time,
Rivera follows the journey of his father Augusto, raised in Lima then
transported to the United States. The two videos converge with amusing and
enlightening results that are not to Augusto's entire satisfaction.
Papapapa is a witty investigation of race and immigration,
nostalgia and distance.
with
OCTAVIO
Directed by Camille de Casabianca and Patrick Blossier,
France/Colombia, 1990; 55 minutes
Octavio is a little boy found abandoned in an attic in
Bogotá. The child is adopted by George and Amy Viltrakis, an Alaskan
couple with three girls of their own. The film shows us the new parents' visit
to Colombia, and their efforts to get to know Octavio in their broken, halting
Spanish. We witness the process of choosing a new name for their son, and then
in Alaska, the introduction of their boy to church, school, community and
friends. In effect, the film shows how an American identity is created, step by
step. True to life, compassionate and clearheaded, Octavio steers clear of
talking-head interviews to focus on the real-life situations and events that
surround the young émigré.
Wednesday, October 23: 2 pm
Thursday, October 24: 9 pm
SA-I-GU
Christine Choy, Dal-Sil, Kim Gibson, Elaine Kim, USA, 1993; 40 minutes, video
A moving testimony to the insidious impact the Los Angeles
riots had on the lives of three Korean- American women merchants. ("Sa-I-Gu" is
Korean for April 29, the day the riots began.) Ultimately damning testimony as
well, as it shows how the power structures of Los Angeles cynically used to
turned their eyes away from the misfortunes of the immigrant community when it
suited their own ends. Part of this video's compelling nature comes from the
fact that Korean immigrant women are rarely heard from. SA-I-GU features footage of the riots, interspersed with candid and heartfelt
interviews with the women, and is the first documentary on the violence from
the Korean point of view.
with
AKA DON BONUS
Sokly "Don Bonus" Ny and Spencer Nakasako, USA, 1995; 55 minutes
A candid and moving video journal capturing a year in the life of an 18-year-old Cambodian refugee in San
Francisco. As Don struggles to finish high school, the system repeatedly fails
him and he must choose between two paths: that of his older brother who has
married and moved to the suburbs, and that of his young brother who teeters on
the edge of the law. A personal, sometimes painful, portrait of growing up.
Wednesday, October 23: 4 pm
Thursday, October 24: 2 and 6:30 pm
LEAVING BAKUL BAGAN
Directed by Sandeep Bhusan Ray, USA 1993; 44 minutes, video
A young college graduate in Calcutta prepares to leave for an
American university. With the Hindu-Muslim riots of 1992 Serving as a
backdrop, she visits with old teachers, does some last-minute shopping, and
learns ballroom dancing, just in case. Meanwhile family configurations change,
family loyalty is questioned and hierarchies are challenged. Ray moved in with
the family in Bakul Bagan to weave everyday details into the tapestry of an
immigrant's departure to a new land, a new life.
with
PERSONAL BELONGINGS
Produced and directed by Steven Bognar, USA, 1995; 61 minutes
In 1965, a young Hungarian idealist named Bela Bognar took up
arms against the advancing Soviet tanks in the streets of Budapest. Needless to
say, he found himself a bit overmatched. Fleeing across the border, he
eventually settled in the US, vowing never to return. Now a middle-class
American family man, Bela returns to Hungary for the revolution's 30th
anniversary. This time, his moviemaking son follows, continuing his on-going
film of his father's story. PERSONAL BELONGINGS effectively and
perceptively expresses the impact of larger historical events on the minutiae
of an individual's life. In this extremely complex and tender story of leaving
home and its aftermath, we see a man torn between two countries, as well as the
tension and trust between an immigrant father and his first-generation American
son, an unflinching witness to pain and disappointment, even to the last
shocking development.
Wednesday, October 23: 6:15 pm
Thursday, October 24: 4:15 pm
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