Stories of Migration: Transnational Documentary

UC Irvine Film and Video Winter Series features work from Chinese filmmakers Pei-Chyi Wan and Anita Chang

UC IRVINE FILM AND VIDEO CENTER PRESENTS TRANSNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY SERIES

Screenings, Receptions & Guest Appearances:

JANUARY 24 -

6:30pm Reception
7:00pm Screening

No Seasons
Directed by Pei-Chyi Wan. 2002, Taiwan, 60 minutes, DVD. In Chinese with English subtitles
An introduction and comments on No Seasons will be provided by curator Catherine Liu, Professor of Film and Media Studies at UC Irvine

62 Years and 6,500 Miles Between
Directed by Anita Wen-Shing Chang. 2005, Taiwan/USA, 52 minutes, DVD. In Chinese with English subtitles
Director Anita Wen-Shing Chang to appear in person for Q&A session

JANUARY 31 -

7:00pm Screening

Grandma Has A Video Camera directed by Tania Cypriano
Directed by Tânia Cypriano. 2007, USA, 60 minutes, DVD. In Portuguese with English subtitles

Winter Series features work from Chinese filmmakers Pei-Chyi Wan and Anita Chang

Irvine, CA – The Film and Video Center (FVC) at UC Irvine presents “Stories of Migration: Transnational Documentary,” a series of documentary films by Pei-Chyi Wan, Anita Chang and Tânia Cypriano on Thursday, January 24 and Thursday, January 31.

On January 24, the series features two Taiwanese films, No Seasons and 62 Years and 6,500 Miles Between with Director Chang in attendance for a Q&A session. Films are presented at 7pm in the FVC’s state of the art theater located at UC Irvine’s Lucille Kuehn Auditorium (Humanities Instructional Building 100). The FVC’s extremely low ticket prices are $5 for general admission, $4 for seniors and $3 for students. This series is co-sponsored by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Los Angeles and the Consulate General of Brazil in Los Angeles.

On Thursday, January 24, the FVC will present the Taiwanese films No Seasons by Pei-Chyi Wan and 62 Years and 6,500 Miles Between by Anita Wen-Shing Chang. A reception will be held at 6:30pm in front of the Lucille Kuehn Auditorium prior to the 7pm screening.

No Seasons is a documentary chronicling three generations of women and one continuous, if disrupted and fractured, route of migration from China to Taiwan, to the United States and back to Taiwan. It is a Diaspora tale about an outland family that came from Mainland China to Taiwan many years ago and features fragmentary images about the journey of time.

An introduction and comments on No Seasons will be provided by series curator Catherine Liu, Professor of Film and Media Studies at UC Irvine.

Director Anita Wen-Shing Chang will be present to discuss 62 Years and 6,500 Miles Between. This film examines how a postcolonial people negotiate the memory and translation essential to the reconstruction and ultimately reclamation of a personal and national history.

Director Chang discovers the political sensibility of her grandmother through the intimate details remembered by those closely associated with her, her award-winning autobiographical essay which was published in 1994 by the Taipei Women’s Rights Organization, and her own memories. As the film progresses, we hear history being told from various perspectives.

Eventually, twists and turns develop along the way - the expectation that the camera is a reliable witness, or that the translation is accurate, the many facts that her grandmother left out of her biography, or that the biography was even written by her grandmother.

On Thursday, January 31 the series concludes with Grandma Has a Video Camera, directed by Tânia Cypriano. Grandma Has a Video Camera portrays the lives of a family of Brazilian immigrants in the United States for almost 20 years, using their own home video footage.

Enchantment turns into disillusionment, idealization to conformity, as images and voices depict how newly arriving immigrants see their new world and struggle to establish a final home. Grandma Has a Video Camera is fast-paced and funny, as well as an endearing take on the issues of migration, displacement and the search for an identity.

“The recent history of immigration and immigrants often define the lives of new Americans and the families they leave behind. These filmmakers give us a new perspective on the transnational and the immigrant experience and they do it with humor, compassion and intelligence,” says curator Catherine Liu.

The Film and Video Center is UCI and Orange County's premiere art house cinema, screening new, independent, experimental and groundbreaking films and videos. The FVC also presents much loved classic films and lesser known gems. Finally, the FVC co-sponsors film festivals representing a diverse range of international and multicultural themes each year.

The FVC is the only cinematheque in Orange County that screens rare and premiere films in 35mm as they were originally meant to be seen. With the capacity for 35mm, 16mm and video projection, along with a state-of-the-art surround sound system, FVC provides a one-of-a-kind movie-going experience at the fraction of the cost of a typical movie theater.

The mission of the FVC is to provide Orange County and surrounding communities with quality, original works unavailable anywhere else, promote film and video making and create a culture receptive to new and unique movie-going experiences.

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT WWW.FILMANDVIDEOCENTER.COM

UCI Film and Video Center
WINTER 2008 FILM SCREENINGS
www.filmandvideocenter.com
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
(949) 824-7418

Ticket Prices:

$3 Students w/ ID, $5 General Admission, $4 UCI Staff and Seniors
Series Pass: $25 general/$20 UCI Staff & Seniors/$15 Students
Unless otherwise noted, screenings begin at 7 pm in Humanities Instructional Building 100.
There are no advance ticket sales. Tickets are available in front of HIB 100 a half hour prior to the screening.

Driving Directions:

From the 405 or I-5, exit Jamboree and go WEST. Turn LEFT on Campus Dr. Turn RIGHT onto the UCI Campus at W. Peltason Drive. Turn LEFT onto Pereira Dr.

From SR73, exit University Dr. and go EAST. Turn RIGHT on Campus Dr. Turn RIGHT onto the UCI Campus at W. Peltason Drive. Turn LEFT onto Pereira Dr.

The Pereira/Student Center Parking Structure is the first left on Pereira Dr. Parking is available for $5. Follow the “Film and Video Center” pedestrian signs to the bottom floor of the Humanities Instructional Building.
Downloadable maps are available on the UCI web site: http://www.uci.edu/campusmaps.shtml

BIOGRAPHIES:

Pei-Chyi Wan
Pei-Chyi Wan graduated from National Taiwan University with majors in Foreign Language and Literature and worked as a researcher, director and producer of television documentaries for Dimensions Communications from 1996 to 2000. After graduating from Tainan National College of the Arts with a Masters in Sound and Image Studies, she became an independent documentary filmmaker. Her recent films include From “Made in Taiwan” to…-the Modernity and Globalization of Apparel in Taiwan (2006-2007), While We’re in the Dominican Republic (2007), and Keep Rowing (2007).

Anita Wen-Shin Chang
Anita Wen-Shin Chang is an independent filmmaker born to parents who immigrated to the U.S. from Taiwan in the 1960’s, fleeing a dictatorship. She is a recipient of a Fulbright Lecturing Award, Film Arts Foundation Personal Works Grant, Serpent Source Grant, Open Meadows Grant, San Francisco Arts Commission Individual Artist Grant, KQED/Peter J. Owens Filmmaker Award, Pacific Islander Cultural Center Grant, Gertrude Murphy Fine Arts Fellowship, Asian American Arts Foundation Grant, and Tufts U. Ted Shapiro Memorial Fund Grant. Her latest film, Joyful Life is currently broadcasting in Taiwan. She Wants to Talk to You was selected for the Whitney Museum’s American Effect exhibition exploring global perceptions of American society and culture, the Bay Area Now 3 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the NEA-funded The Girls Project, an international video/film resource guide for community groups, schools, and universities.

Tânia Cypriano
Tânia Cypriano has been working between the United States and her native Brazil for over fifteen years. Her films and videos have won international awards including Best Documentary at the Joseph Papp's Festival Latino in New York, the Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Art Institute Int'l Film Festival, Festival do Cinema de Gramado in Brazil and Fespaco in Burkina Faso. They have also been shown around the world in places such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Jerusalem Film Festival, the Amsterdam Documentary Film Festival, Rock in Rio and the Berlin International Film Festival.