FLM&MDA 130 (4.0 units) – Session I
The multiplicity of voices, the energy and vitality of Asian American film and video production will be the focus of this class. Independent Asian American film and video makers have experimented with cinematic language and style and created a body of work reflecting an emphasis on history, self-definition, cultural and social issues in the community and gender and sexuality issues. We will view and analyze a selection of films and videos on issues of identity in films like From Hollywood to Hanoi and First Person Plural; the struggle for social justice in American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs and queer belonging in Saving Face and several other films and videos. We will study films and videos within a framework of cinema as breaking silencing mechanisms and the negotiation of hybrid identities that contest narrow boundaries of nation. Readings will include cultural theory, film theory and social and political issues in relation to the films.
