Coming to NYC’s Stranger Than Fiction series at the IFC Center tonight, Tuesday, May 20: 9 MAN
Ursula Liang’s exploration of a distinctive Asian American competition debuted at IFF Boston last month. It has also screened at the LA Asian Pacific Film Festival, where it received both an audience award and a special jury award.
Played since at least the 1930s, the eponymous volleyball variant was developed by Chinese immigrants to America, and functioned as both an athletic pastime and a social outlet in a time of widespread anti-Chinese sentiment, discrimination, and segregation. Liang’s film traces this fascinating history as a backdrop to the street game’s modern incarnation, passed on generationally and now embraced by Asian Americans who are typically integrated within mainstream American culture. As various teams from North American cities including New York, San Francisco, Boston, and Toronto seek glory in the national championships, their participation in this uniquely Asian American game offers opportunity to consider not only the not-so-distant history of cultural differences faced by immigrant communities, but also to reflect on misconceptions and stereotypes about Asian male masculinity and athleticism, as well as what constitutes Asian-ness as biracial and multiracial contenders offer a potential challenge to the sport’s traditional rules.
what (not) to doc 