Update May 16: I forgot to add that the main character the film focused on was a pastor. It was interesting to see how he not only preached from the pulpit, but he was out there actually doing something and fighting for social change. I feel like I don’t see much of that these days.
Oooh, there’s an additional screening of this film this Thursday, May 16! I watched this film last week when it premiered on opening night of this year’s CAAMFest. Even though I spent most of my childhood weekends in Chinatown, there were still a lot of things I didn’t know about its history during the 60’s and 70’s.
ABOUT THE FILM
Against the backdrop of the Civil Rights Movement of the mid-1960s, a young San Francisco Chinatown resident armed with a 16mm camera and leftover film scraps from a local TV station, turned his lens onto his community. Totaling more than 20,000 feet of film (10 hours), Harry Chuck’s exquisite unreleased footage has captured a divided community’s struggles for self-determination. Chinatown Rising is a documentary film about the Asian-American Movement from the perspective of the young residents on the front lines of their historic neighborhood in transition. Through publicly challenging the conservative views of their elders, their demonstrations and protests of the 1960s-1980s rattled the once quiet streets during the community’s shift in power. Forty-five years later, in intimate interviews these activists recall their roles and experiences in response to the need for social change.
(from https://www.chinatownrising.com/ )
If you’re in the area, buy your tickets NOW.