Category Archives: Documentary

Coming to PBS’s America ReFramed tomorrow, Tuesday, May 10: THE GRACE LEE PROJECT

Grace Lee’s consideration of names, culture, and identity debuted at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival in 2005. Screenings followed at SXSW, Los Angeles, Pusan, St Louis, Hawaii, New York Asian American, and Toronto Reel Asian, among other events. It comes to America ReFramed as part of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.

Growing up in the midwest, Lee considered herself to be unique – hers was the only Korean-American family that she knew. It wasn’t until she relocated to New York and California that she learned that she was hardly the only “Grace Lee” – everyone she met seemed to have previously met one, and every Grace Lee was described in the same nice, smart stereotypical Asian girl way. The filmmaker embarks on a personal and often humorous quest to talk to other Grace Lees around the US in order to examine the truth behind the stereotype and find those who break the mold, among them the committed social activist Grace Lee Boggs, who would later become the standalone subject of Lee’s AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY. Along the way she uncovers dual origins for her name’s ubiquity in both Hollywood’s glamorous past and in the influence of Christianity on Asian American immigrant communities, and celebrates a more complex understanding of Asian American female identity.

Coming to NYC’s Stranger Than Fiction series tonight, Tuesday, May 3: IN TRANSIT

Al Maysles, Lynn True, David Usui, Nelson Walker, and Ben Wu’s observational portrait of cross-country train travel debuted at Tribeca last year. Screenings followed at IDFA, Vancouver, Full Frame, Dokufest Kosovo, Camden, DMZ Docs, Docs DF, Docslisboa, RIDM, AFI Docs, Hamptons, Denver, and DocAviv, among others.

This immersive film follows the path of the Empire Builder, the most active long-distance train route in the US, from Chicago to Seattle, as it offers brief but often surprisingly poignant scenes with various passengers and other riders. As the filmmakers present these fleeting profiles – an abused woman reflects on the children she gave up for adoption, an oil field worker heads to a reunion with his girlfriend, a single mother of four kids seeks a relationship with her father, a conductor speaks of his job fulfilling long-held dreams – a multifaceted, intimate portrait of modern America emerges, one that makes for a fitting last project by the incomparable Albert Maysles.