Coming to PBS’s America ReFramed series as part of Asian American Heritage month tomorrow, Tuesday, May 5: 9-MAN
Ursula Liang’s look at a unique intersection of sports and culture debuted at IFF Boston last year. It also screened at DOC NYC, Stranger Than Fiction, Hawaii, and at scores of Asian American fests in Toronto, Philadelphia, Seattle, Austin, Los Angeles, Boston, and San Francisco, among others.
I previously wrote about the film for DOC NYC’s program, saying:
Played since the 1930s, 9-Man, a variant of volleyball, was developed by Chinese immigrants to America as both an athletic pastime and a social outlet in a time of widespread anti-Chinese sentiment, discrimination, and segregation. Ursula Liang’s film traces the game’s fascinating history as a backdrop to the present-day national championship, in which Asian-American players, now fully integrated into mainstream North American culture, defy stereotypes about Asian masculinity and athleticism even as they connect to their heritage.
what (not) to doc 