For a KUCI Subversity Online interview (recorded 22 April 2016) with Eddy Zheng,
director Ben Wang and composer Scott “Chops” Jung, click here:
Eddy Zheng
One could say that Eddy Zheng (left) made something of himself
despite being incarcerated at San Quentin prison for 19 years plus another two
in immigration detention.The Cantonese
immigrant from Guangzhou, China, was only 16 when he waved a gun and participated
in a home invasion.
While he buffed up his body from careful exercise, he also
took care of his mind. Reading about Asian American and other people of color
struggles in the prison library – led him to enhance the collection as he
managed to get the prison authorities to add many more books on such
struggles.He petitioned the authorities
to implement Asian American studies in prison – instead he got put in solitary
confinement – the hole – as punishment for daring to ask that.
Ben Wang, director
In the meantime, he earned an associate degree by enrolling
in a prison program. And through it all, the activist community reached out to
him, offering him support even as he got turned down repeatedly by the parole
board, until the last time, which was successful.But then he was placed in immigration
detention because he was not able to apply for citizenship while incarcerated.
In the end, it was through a gubernatorial pardon (from
California Governor Jerry Brown) that led to his deportation case being ended. Eventually he was officially released in 2007.Now free, he managed to get San Quentin to implement
Asian American studies.
This man, now 47, remains committed to community service,
and through an intermediary, successfully reached out to the mother he
victimized when he was 16, with his written apology (in Chinese) accepted.
Scott "Chops" Jung, composer
Director Ben Wang (above, right) has put
together a tightly edited documentary, "Breathin': The Eddy Zheng Story," on the power of reconciliation and redemption
and about how writers like Helen Zia (author of Asian American Dreams and other works) inspired this inmate to commit his life to
community work, while even within the dark recesses of solitary confinement.
The film screened twice at the 2016 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. -- Daniel C. Tsang.
"Toto" tells the story of a Manila hotel worker who seeks
every way to get a visa to America.Sid
Lucero plays Antonio Estares, the Toto in the film, who in his jovial and friendly
self tries to flirt his way with hotel guests – all with U.S. passports – to
try to get one to sponsor him on his American Dream.
This comedic look at the hopes of many
outside U.S. to get to the land of many dreams exposes the harsh reality that
without money, such a dream often becomes a nightmare.The very hetero Toto even gets cruised by an
American tourist staying in the hotel - will he succumb and sleep with the
American just to get a chance at a visa?
The film tackles his dilemma (and that of the American) in
an unexpected way.Instead of depicting
the American David Yeltsin (played by Blake Boyd) as a sexual predator after Asian young men, the director of Toto,
John Paul Su, manages to resolve the dilemma in this feature drama (115
minutes) to the ultimate satisfaction of both parties, with Toto retaining his
dignity and David also gaining what he needed. I'm not revealing what happens in the end; I'm afraid you will have to catch the film somewhere.
But Toto (the film) did manage to get to America, screening last Sunday at the 2016 Newport Beach Film Festival at
tony Newport Beach in sunny Southern California. The festival ends today.
For a Subversity Show Online bilingual (Vietnamese/English) interview with Phong, click here. Thanks to Thuy-Van Nguyen for interpreting!
Garnering the Community Spotlight Award at the 2016
Vietnamese Film Festival held in Orange, California, “Finding Phong” (Tim Phong) is an exquisitely beautiful
and revealing 2015 film about a young Vietnamese man’s journey to become a
young woman.
Scene from "Finding Phong": Mother (in background) with Phong
Although the film lists two veteran indie filmmakers Tran
Phuong Thao and Swann Dubus as co-directors, credit nonetheless also belongs to
the subject of this documentary, Le Anh Phong.Phong manages capture with small video cameras her own journey (while
trapped in the body of a male), as she filmed herself talking to her mother who
is far away back in their rural home in Quang Ngai province in Central Vietnam.
Selfie scene from "Finding Phong"
Phong with Subversity Show host
Self-identifying as a girl in her childhood,
the star of the film also manages to capture what must be an ethnographer’s
dream footage, as sister, brother and friends talk explicitly about
heterosexual sex including ejaculation and oral and penetrative sex.In addition to her mother, in her 70s, who
wonders why she is fated to have such a son (she had been happy the boy was
born), the bearded father (in his eighties) is shown saying that it doesn’t
matter boy or girl as long as there is support for the Revolution!
The film has been expertly and carefully edited out of 250
hours of footage and ends right after Phong manages to complete the physical
transition at a Thai clinic.It was
totally unscripted, and could not have been, given the gems of humanity that
remain in the film after its length was trimmed.
Kudos to the producers Gerry Herman and Nicole Pham who have
partnered with Phong to see this amazing film reach the festival audience
worldwide.It won France’s Nanook GrandPrix at the 34th Festival International Jean Rouch last fall, and furthermore a
DVD of the film has been added to every French school library in an attempt at
helping overcome discrimination against the transgendered.
Phong at VFF
Most significantly, Phong tells me in our brief Subversity
Show Online interview, Phong’s mother testified before state legislators, and Phong’s
story of her gender transition no doubt was instrumental in the passage of Asia’s
first law permitting transgendered to register in their chosen gender, when
Vietnam’s legislature passed such legislation last November.The law comes into effect in 2017 after 282
legislators voted in favor of it, out of 366.Unlike Phong, who had to travel to Thailand for her operation, future
Vietnamese transsexuals will be more likely to find receptive clinics within
Vietnam.Phong, who had moved to Hanoi
to go to university and discovered she was not alone as a transgendered, now
works for the state Puppet Theater there, painting the figurines that are used
in Vietnamese cultural productions.–
Daniel C. Tsang.
Two features and one short depict queer cinema from Vietnam will be screening Sunday, 17 April 2016 at VAALA's Vietnamese Film Festival that has just opened at the AMC 30 (The Outlets) in Orange, California.
A prizewinning film on the journey of Le Anh Phong from male to female is Finding Phong, who herself will appear at the festival. The film has already made a strong impact in Vietnam, which earlier this year passed legislation facilitating the legal recognition of trans people there, after officials viewed the film. It is directed by Tran Phuong Thao and Swann Dubus.
Joining a free "Finding Phong and the Vietnamese LGBTQ Community"
discussion (open to the public) after the showing at 1 pm Sunday April
17, 2016 is producer Gerry Herman, the Hanoi-based independent film
figure who has for over a decade managing the Hanoi Cinematheque that he founded in Vietnam's capital. Another panelist is cp-producer Nicole Pham. The panel will also include members of VROC: Viet Rainbow of Orange County, California.
Another queer feature is Big Father, Small Father and other Stories, focusing on male lust among various characters set in modern-day Vietnam. It is directed by Phan Dang Di and was in competition at The Berlinale. The film stars
Do Thi Hai Yen (Quiet American, Pao's Story and Adrift), Le Cong Hoang as well as Truong The Vinh.
To listen to the post-screening panel discussion, click here.
Irvine - Just a half-dozen years ago, Russell Curry was a leading protester at University of California, Irvine - speaking out in support of muslims and people of color on campus. He rallied activist students and staff at the flagpole and got them to "put your fist in the sky" to fight injustice. He went to the Gaza on a peace and aid mission. Through it all, his mission was to reach out to challenge and engage even those who disagreed with him, in rallies, one-on-one discussions, and on KUCI, where he appeared on the Subversity Show several times.
"Sonny Boy" (as he was then known by his rap name) was back on campus Tuesday, 1 March, 2016, almost six years to the day after his last major rally. Professionally, he works a handsome male model -- but Russell Curry remains a powerful political voice of reason, even as he has now become an integral part of a new explosive film that intelligently explores, without exploiting, the current national debate at institutions of higher education around race and racism.
Russell Curry rallying Anteaters 4 March 2010 almost exactly six years ago.
Russell Curry remains true to the activist past honed at UCI, and that experience impacted the film, as he explained in the Q&A after a free showing of "Boiling Pot: The Truth is Never Black and White," although he was typically quite modest about his role, looking back.
The film is a dramatization based loosely on two notable real-life racist campus incidents - a noose found hanging from a bookcase at UC San Diego Library, and the notorious off-campus "Compton Cookout", a "black-themed" party that served watermelon and the frat brothers wore baggy clothes, posing as blacks. The incidents sparked disgust and even got picked up nationally in the New York Times, which ran a story 26 February 2010 under the headline, "California Campus Sees Uneasy Race Relations."
Watching the film that was shown as part of the UCI Sudent Affairs' New Narratives series, I was blown away by the tight editing and dynamic pace of what turned out to be a thriller and murder mystery. At points I was on the edge of my seat, straining to catch it all in. Definitely, credit belongs to director Omar Ashmawey, who also co-wrote the script with his brother, Ibrahim, for skilled directing of a multi-ethnic cast.
Ibrahim Ashmawey, Andrew Luu, Russell Curry
and Omar Ashmawey, from "Boiling Pot" panel discussion
While a few in the audience after the screening wondered whether the film was too one-sided, I have to disagree. The main characters were decidedly more nuanced than cartoonish, and whether black, Arab, Asian or white, almost all were portrayed as self-analytical and ultimately redeemable. Especially striking was Academy Award winning actor Louis Gossett Jr., who superbly portrayed a dogged bulldog of a law enforcement interrogator, Detective Haven.
Russell Curry answers questions
I was also struck by Ibrahim Ashmawey, who portrayed an Arab American, Hazem Seif, from New Jersey who was dating the female character, Valerie Davis, stunningly played by Danielle Fischel.
Russell Curry, who played a bit part as a black student, Malik Stanton, was especially notable with his restrained acting and thoughtful face.
Three white characters were also noteworthy: John Heard, played the racist father of Valerie, Tim Davis. Matthew Koenig, a recent UCI MFA graduate, portrayed in quite some depth a one-time love interest of hers, Garrett Perrin. Finally, M. Emmet Walsh played a clueless fictional dean of students Marison - who viewed racial incidents as "isolated" and nothing to raise a fuss about. Quite a devastating critique of campus administration, ironic since the film screened as part of a dean of students program at UCI.
There were no "trigger warnings" thankfully at the showing, although it turns out one student in the audience would later identify himself as a high schooler. Whether it will be shown at high schools of course an open question, given the constraints teachers and students have under varying local school boards. But it should be. High schoolers - many dealing with the same racism - should not be denied the opportunity to engage in "new narratives" either.
The film is viewable online (not free) via Amazon.
