Work in Progress Screening of Anna May Wong:In Her Own Words

Join MOCA for a Target Free Thursday Work in Progress Screening of Anna May Wong: In Her Own Words, directed by Yunah Hong.

Anna May Wong: In Her Own Words is an hour long  documentary about how a Chinese laundryman’s daughter became an international star, a member of high society, an activist and an artist despite the racism and sexism of the day. Anna May Wong (1905-1961) was a premier Chinese American film star and stage actress who achieved worldwide fame and popularity in the 1920s and the 1930s. The documentary unfolds her experiences as an ambitious Chinese American woman in the public eye. It also shows Anna through my eyes and those of other Asian Americans.

Followed by Q&A with the filmmaker. 

Admission: Free and open to the public, courtesy of Target. Please RSVP at education@mocanyc.org.

About the Filmmaker

Yunah Hong is an award-winning filmmaker, based in New York City. She grew up in Seoul, Korea.
She moved to New York to do graduate work in 1985. There she saw Anna May Wong in Joseph von Sternberg’s Shanghai Express. Though she is marginalized in the film as a Chinese and a prostitute, Hong perceived her as a beautiful, independent, gutsy American woman unlike any women she had known in Korea. She embarked on a quest to find out what Anna May Wong had been like as a person behind her cinematic image.

Yunah Hong has made eight films. All of them focus, in one way or another, on Asian American women. Between the Lines: Asian American Women’s Poetry (2001) is a one-hour documentary that weaves together autobiographies and readings by 16 poets. Becoming an Actress in New York (2000) follows three hopefuls as they trek to auditions, work with coaches, strive to be noticed in workshop productions and labor at day jobs. She has made several experimental films, including Memory/all echo (1990), based on the work of multimedia artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha.
 

Anna May Wong: In Her Own Words has received funding from the Center for Asian American Media, New York State Council on the Arts, Asian Women Giving Circle and the Jerome Foundation.

Photo by Eichberg-Film Company.