Amy Chen's "The Chinatown Files," a nominee for aMedia's national Ammy Award for Best Documentary, makes its Hawaii premiere Monday at the Hawai'i International Film Festival. Film on Chinese-American
persecution to premier
at isle film festivalHIFF FACTS
"The Chinatown Files" Screening at 2:30 p.m. Monday and 7:30 p.m. Nov. 9 at Hawai'i Convention Center
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The documentary reveals the story of Chinese American men and women who were hunted down, jailed and targeted for deportation during the McCarthy era in the 1950s and 1960s, when thousands of Chinese Americans became the victims of racially-motivated violations of civil rights and liberties.
Ignited by the anti-communist fervor of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, Chinese Americans could not send money to their relatives in China, speak positively of their homeland or exercise their cultural traditions. Families were divided, jobs were lost and people were jailed. In hopes that anonymity would assuage government suspicion, the community virtually withdrew from society.
Producer/director Chen is president and founder of Second Decade Films, and an award-winning broadcast journalist, contributor to National Public Radio and Pacific Radio.
"The Chinatown Files" was chosen by aMagazine readers as a final nominee for aMedia's Ammy Award for Best Documentary and was one of 12 films selected out of 177 to be shown at the 2002 Council on Foundation's Film and Video Festival.
Producer Ying Chan was a reporter for the New York Daily News when she was awarded a Nieman fellowship by Harvard University. She also won the George Polk Award for her coverage of the story of Chinese refugees brought to the United States in the ship the Golden Venture. In 1997, she was invited to create and develop the Journalism and Media Studies Center at Hong Kong University, where she continues to serve as the Director and professor.
For more information, visit the Web site www.chinatownfiles.org.
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