'The Chinese Gardens' free screening at 2013 SAAFF

The Seattle Asian American Film Festival (SAAFF) will hold a free screening of director Valerie Soe's documentary short film "The Chinese Gardens" on Jan. 26, 2013 at the Wing Luke Museum - Tateuchi Story Theater.

A panel discussion with director Soe and Bettie Luke, Chinese Expulsion Remembrance Project 2011 Chair and sister of Wing Luke will follow the short film screening.

Here's the film's festival synopsis:

The Chinese Gardens looks at the lost Chinese community in Port Townsend, WA, examining anti-Chinese violence in the Pacific Northwest in the late 1800s and drawing connections between past and present race relations in this country. Through text, brief interviews, and images of the empty spaces of Port Townsend's former Chinatown, the film examines early instances of racism against the Chinese in the U.S., from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 through various lynchings, beatings, and murders. The Chinese Gardens also documents Chinese American resistance to these crimes, illuminating the hidden history of that tumultuous time.

The Chinese GardensThe Chinese Gardens

"The Chinese Gardens" was an official selection of the Dallas VideoFest 25 and Claremont Colleges Asian Americans in Media Film Festival.

Soe is a San Francisco writer, educator, and artist whose experimental videos and installations, which look at gender and cultural identity and anti-racism struggles, have exhibited at venues such as the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles the Museum of Modern Art and the New Museum in New York City, and at film festivals worldwide.

Her most recent award-winning documentary, The Oak Park Story (2010) has exhibited widely across the country. Soe is also the author of the blog beyondasiaphilia.com, which looks at Asian American art, film, culture, and activism. beyondasiaphilia is the recipient of a 2012 Art Writers’ Grant from the Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Foundation, one of only seven such grants awarded in the U.S.

She is an Assistant Professor in the Asian American Studies Department at San Francisco State University, where she teaches film history and production, cultural criticism, art and social practice, and media
studies.

For more info visit: http://www.thechinesegardens.com