Janet Yang moderated a “Hollywood Chinese” virtual book talk with writer Arthur Dong.
Book talks for Hollywood Chinese resumed after a series of postponed engagements due to Covid-19 restrictions. On July 5, 2020, the Los Angeles-based Chinese American Museum and moderator Janet Yang hosted writer Arthur Dong for his inaugural virtual presentation. Some 350 guests from around the world tuned in, which resulted in over 100 online book sales.
The Killing Fields of Dr. Haing S. Ngor (dir. Arthur Dong, 2015) is featured in IMDB’s tribute to cinematic history and Asian Pacific American filmmakers and their visionary work.
Pacific Arts Movement has compiled a playlist of films that prove “Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have been dunking on American history for over a century.” Forbidden City, USA (dir. Arthur Dong, 1989) is named a “heartthrob” story in their “Up to the 1950s” line-up. Complete playlist HERE.
Filmmaker and author Arthur Dong kicked off UCLA’s “Yellow Peril’s Revenge: Asian American Independent Cinema” lecture/screening series on April 8, 2020. With Covid-19 Safer-at-Home directives in place, the session was conducted via Zoom, as illustrated below by Angel Trazo, one of some 60 students who logged in.
Filmmaker Arthur Dong’s pioneering work over the past forty years was featured in the Spring issue of Film Quarterly in their special dossier on Asian American film. Download Dong’s interview by Oliver Wang here.
Due to Covid-19 pre-cautions and regulations, our Spring 2020 Hollywood Chinese book events scheduled for March, April, and May have been cancelled. We hope to re-book these events in the future.
Screening Reality: How Documentary Filmmakers Re-imagined America, Jon Wilkman’s comprehensive book chronicling the history of documentaries, included a profile and discussion on Arthur Dong’s films that covered Asian American and LGBTQ stories. In her review of the book for Documentary Magazine, Cynthia Close notes: “The fearless portrayals of the LGTBQ community from Marlon T. Riggs and Arthur Dong are yet another example of the growing acceptance of certain subjects unheard of in the not-so-distant past.” Pictured below is a page from the book featuring Dong and cinematographer Stephen Lighthill on the set of Coming Out Under Fire.
