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Post-1906 earthquake redevelopment shaped SF Chinatown’s facades into a caricatured tourist attraction, perpetuating stereotypes for the white colonial gaze. Nonetheless, this ingenious tourism strategy stopped the City leaders from moving Chinatown permanently to the outskirts and preserved Chinatown as an enduring immigrant haven. Half a century later, amid the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, the Civil Rights Movement, the fight for the I-Hotel and Golden Dragon massacre of 1977, Chinatown had a cultural awakening and the Disneyland-like facades were met with renewed discontent.
“Chinatown Rebels” brings together three defiant gestures in film and television that challenge Chinatown’s tourist gaze and stereotypes. “Dupont Guy: The Schiz of Grant Ave” (1976) by Curtis Choy and “Bean Sprouts” (1980) by Loni Ding reflect the anxieties and hope of 1970s’ Chinatown, grappling an increasingly multicultural and multinational San Francisco, while embodying the ambiguities of Chinese-ness, Chinese America, and Chinatown. Student film “Fortune” (2023) by Shirley Yumeng, offers an intimate glimpse into one of Chinatown’s beloved Ross Alley; once emblematic of the bachelor society and its subversions, Ross Alley now stands as a testament to Chinatown’s evolving identity.
Today, with new developments in the neighborhood, Chinatown is once again at a crossroad. Join us on the iconic Chinatown Grant Avenue (Aka “Dupont Street”) for a film screening and panel discussion led by Chinatown community and culture shapers. Engage with the planning and visioning of the nation’s oldest Chinatown, a place that continues to reinterpret and reinvent itself; exemplifying and inspiring the festival’s theme of rooted resurgence.
Doors open at 5pm; program 6:00 – 8:00 pm.
Curators: Fay Darmawi, SF Urban Film Fest and Hoi Leung, Chinese Culture Center
Panelists:
Fay Darmawi (moderator), Founder and Executive Director, SF Urban Film Fest
Hoi Leung, Curator and Deputy Director, Chinese Culture Center
Joanne Lee, Executive Director, Edge on the Square
Stephen Gong, Executive Director of the Center for Asian American Media
Cynthia Huie, Owner, On Waverly
In this program
Fortune
Directed by Shirley Yumeng He
An experimental short-film meditation on the liminality of Chinese-American identity.
Dupont Guy: The Schiz of Grant Ave
Directed by Curtis Choy
This 1975 Oscar winner explores cross-cultural currents of San Francisco’s Chinatown.
Bean Sprouts, Clips from Episodes 1 + 4
Directed by Loni Ding
Chinese American children and their friends, dealing with themes of personal identity, intercultural contacts and generational relations in the settings of school, family and community.
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