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Christine Choy

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Christine Choy
Choy in 1986
Born
Chai Ming Huei

1952 (age 71–72)
Shanghai, China
Alma materManhattanville College
Occupation(s)Filmmaker, director, documentarian, journalist, activist
Known forWho Killed Vincent Chin? (1988)
Political partyBlack Panther Party
AwardsAcademy Award for Best Documentary - Nominated (1989), "Who Killed Vincent Chin?"
Chinese name
Chinese崔明慧[1]
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinCuī Mínghuì
Korean name
Hangul
최명혜
Revised RomanizationChoe Myeonghye
McCune–ReischauerCh'oe Myŏnghye

Christine Choy (born 1952) is a Chinese-American filmmaker.[2] She is known for co-directing Who Killed Vincent Chin?, a 1988 film based on the murder of Vincent Jen Chin, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. She co-founded Third World Newsreel, a film company focusing on people of color and social justice issues. As a documentary filmmaker, she has produced and directed more than eighty films. She is a professor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.[3]

Early life

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Life in Asia

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Choy was born in Shanghai in the People's Republic of China[3] as Chai Ming Huei to a Korean father and a Chinese mother.[4][2] Shortly after Choy's birth, her father abandoned the family to return to South Korea. As a result, Choy was raised largely by her mother. Growing up, her family struggled greatly financially.[2]

Following the Cultural Revolution, the family fled mainland China via Hong Kong.[5][2] They moved to South Korea, where Choy was reunited with her father. During this time, Choy developed a strong appreciation for American films released in South Korea. Although she enjoyed the films, Choy became attuned to the prevalence of casual discrimination towards Asian people in American media.[6]

Arrival in America; Education

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Choy moved to New York City at the age of 14. "I was a volunteer for WBAI in high school," Choy recounts. "One of my duties was covering the Panther Twenty-One trial at the Tombs." During the trial, she earned the trust of the Panthers and soon afterward, began doing errands for the New York City chapter.[3]

"I was a Panther Youth," Choy recalls. "I did the running around for the big shots."[3]

In 1965,[6] Choy was given a scholarship to attend Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart in New York, where she studied architecture. While attending, she made friends with a group of hippies that were a part of Newsreel. At Newsreel, Choy worked as an editor and animation director for some amount of time.[2] Soon thereafter, Choy earned a Directing Certificate at the American Film Institute.[7]

Filmmaking

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Choy has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Rockefeller Memorial Fellowship, and an Asian Cultural Council Fellowship. Her documentary film Who Killed Vincent Chin? received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1989.[7] In 2021, the film was registered in the National Film Registry.[8]

Using her camera to shed light on hidden social histories and injustices, Choy has developed a reputation for fearless filmmaking and uncompromising vision in her push to change and deepen audiences' understanding of the world.[9]

Career

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In 1972, Choy co-founded Third World Newsreel together with fellow filmmaker Susan Robeson. During her tenure, Choy directed documentary films on the 1971 Attica prison uprising, the life of women in United States prisons, and the history of social activism in New York City's chinatown, as well as documentaries on the division of the Korean peninsula and Namibia's struggle for independence from South Africa, among others.[10]

In 1974, Choy directed her first feature-length documentary, Teach Our Children. Because Choy was able to relate to the poverty and the migration issues that people around her faced, she was inspired to make a second documentary, fusing the issues she faced in China and South Korea with the struggles she faced in the United States. She finished the film—From Spikes to Spindles—in 1976. Its focus was Chinese migration and Chinese citizens' struggle for equal treatment in America.

Choy was one of the first major female Chinese-American filmmakers. She is frequently painted as a controversial figure. She is considered a political filmmaker[11] and an activist.[2]

One of Choy's most acclaimed films, Who Killed Vincent Chin? (1988), was co-directed with Renee Tajima. The film tells the story of Vincent Jen Chin, a Chinese-American man who was beaten to death with a baseball bat by Ron Ebens and his stepson, Michael Nitz, who held Chin defenseless. Neither of the White men served a single day in prison. They were each sentenced to 3 years probation and a $3,000 fine. Choy struggled in seeking funding for this film due to its high-tension subject matter, shedding light on working-class racism in Detroit at a time when the US auto industry was failing, and Japanese cars were gaining popularity. The film was a pioneer in reconfiguring ethnographic filmmaking and won several accolades.

At the 1989 Sundance Film Festival, while there to promote her film Who Killed Vincent Chin?,[12] Choy shared lodging with Steven Soderbergh, who was in Park City premiering Sex, Lies, and Videotape.[13][14][15] Also at the '89 Festival, she confronted Robert Redford about Sundance's lack of diversity,[16] calling the event "white on white" ("white people, white snow").[13] Who Killed Vincent Chin? was nominated for the Grand Jury documentary award at the Festival; and went on to win a Peabody Award in 1990.[12]

Choy is well acclaimed for making another film dealing with minority discrimination. Sa-I-gu (1993), another film that Choy codirected, about the effect of the 1992 Los Angeles riots on the Korean American community there, directly deals with the racial animosity towards Asians in America, but more specifically Asian women.[2]

After decades of directing in the documentary industry, Choy became a professor at Tisch School of Arts in New York City. She has taught a section of the production course "Sight & Sound Documentary" for many years. She also instructs a course called "Directing the Thesis" to third-year students. Additionally, Choy has teaching experience at Yale, Cornell, Buffalo State University of New York, and City University in Hong Kong.[7][11]

In her time teaching, she has mentored many filmmakers, with a long list of protégés including Todd Phillips, Raoul Peck, and Brett Morgen.[17]

In 2021, Who Killed Vincent Chin? was inducted into the Library of Congress' National Film Registry.[8] It had recently been restored by the Academy Film Archive and The Film Foundation to mark the 40th anniversary of Chin's death. At the time, there had also been a recent surge in hate crimes against Asian Americans in the U.S.[18]

Awards

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Filmography

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Year Title Director Producer Cinematographer Writer Notes Ref.
1974 "Teach Our Children" (Short film) Yes Yes Yes [2]
1975 Generation of a Railroad Spiker Yes [2]
1975 Fresh Seeds in a Big Apple Yes [2]
1976 From Spikes to Spindles Yes [2]
1977 History of the Chinese Patriot Movement in the U.S. Yes [2]
1977 North Country Tour Yes [2]
1978 Inside Women Inside Yes [2]
1978 Loose Pages Bound Yes [2]
1978 A Dream Is What You Wake Up From Yes [2]
1980 To Love, Honor, and Obey Yes [2]
1981 White Flower Passing Yes [2]
1982 "Bittersweet Survival" (Short film) Yes Yes* *Executive Producer [2]
1982 Go Between Yes [2]
1982-83 Mississippi Triangle Yes [2]
1983 Fei Teir, Goddess in Flight Yes [2]
1984 Namibia, Independence Now Yes [2]
1985 Monkey King Looks West Yes [2]
1986 "Permanent Wave" (Short film) Yes [2]
1988 Shanhai Lil's Yes [2]
1988 Who Killed Vincent Chin? Yes Yes Nominated - Academy Award for Best Documentary, 1989 [2]
1989 Best Hotel on Skid Row Yes [2]
1989 Fortune Cookie: The Myth of the Model Minority Yes [2]
1991 Homes Apart: Korea Yes Yes Yes [21]
1993 "Sa-I-Gu" (Short film) Yes Yes Yes [2]
1995 A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde Yes
1997 My America... or Honk If You Love Buddha Yes
1997 Wrongful Death: Hattori vs. Peairs Yes
1997 The Shot Heard Round The World Yes Yes Yes Yes Winner - Best Documentary, Bangkok International Film Festival [22][23]
1998 In the Name of the Emperor Yes Yes
1998 "Electric Shadow" (Short film) Yes Yes
2001 Ha Ha Shanghai Yes
2003 Sparrow Village Yes [24][25]
2007 No Fifth Grade Yes [26]
2007 Miao Village Medicine Yes [27][28]
2008 "Long Story Short" (Short film) Yes Yes
2014 Ghina Yes Yes Yes
2016 "Rodney King: Koreatown Reacts" (Short film) Yes Yes
2016 "ReOrienting Africa" (Short film) Yes Yes
2016 "Legal Smuggling with Christine Choy" (Short film) Yes [29]
2019 "The Architects of Camellia" (Short film) Yes

Acting performances and documentary appearances

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Year Title Role / Self Notes Ref.
1993 Sa-I-Gu (Short film) Self
1994- Asian America Self TV series
2005 Marc Forster: Von Davos nach Hollywood Self TV movie
2010 Cellar Haeri also Executive Producer
2013 "Ego Death" (Short film) Teacher
2016 "Legal Smuggling with Christine Choy" (Short film) Self (Voiceover) Directed by Noah & Lewie Kloster; animated film [29]
2017 "Human Resources" (Short film) Eileen
2017 Scars of Nanking Self TV movie
2022 The Exiles Self Directed by Violet Columbus & Ben Klein (former students at NYU); Winner - Grand Jury Prize, U.S. Documentary competition, 2022 Sundance Film Festival [30]
2022 "Who Killed Vincent Chin? Revisited" (Short film) Self

References

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  1. ^ "崔明慧：徐克、李安都为其打过工" [Christine Choy: Tsui Hark, Ang Lee have both worked for her]. Waitan Huabao. 2009-04-24. Archived from the original on 2015-11-17. Retrieved 2015-11-14.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad Foster, Gwendolyn Audrey (1995). Women Film Directors: An International Bio-critical Dictionary. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 77–79. ISBN 9780313289729. Christine Choy.
  3. ^ a b c d Shih, Bryan, and Yohuru Williams (2016). The Black Panthers: Portraits from an Unfinished Revolution. New York: Nation Books. pp. 143–145. ISBN 978-1-56858-555-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. ^ "Film Depicts Life in Delta". Alabama Journal. December 2, 1983. p. 23 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ "奥斯卡游戏公平吗". Xinmin Weekly. 2014-12-04. Archived from the original on 2015-11-17. Retrieved 2015-11-14.
  6. ^ a b Williams, M.E. (December 4, 1983). "Life, struggles of Chinese in Mississippi chronicled". Hattiesburg American. p. 5D – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ^ a b c "Christine Choy". NYU Tisch. Retrieved 8 November 2015.
  8. ^ a b Tartaglione, Nancy (2021-12-14). "National Film Registry Adds 'Return Of The Jedi', 'Fellowship Of The Ring', 'Strangers On A Train', 'Sounder', 'WALL-E' & More". Deadline. Retrieved 2024-02-08.
  9. ^ "Christine Choy". Indiana University Cinema. Retrieved 2024-02-06.[permanent dead link‍]
  10. ^ "Third World Newsreel - Film Training, Distribution & Production". www.twn.org. Retrieved 2024-02-06.
  11. ^ a b c Tribune, Mishi Saran, International Herald (1999-08-05). "Christine Choy Turns the Camera on Herself". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-03-09.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  12. ^ a b "Who Killed Vincent Chin". Foundation for Asian American Independent Media. Retrieved 2024-02-05.
  13. ^ a b "Eugene Hernandez on Jan. 23, 2022". www.instagram.com. Retrieved 2024-02-05.
  14. ^ Byrge, Duane (2024-01-18). "'sex, lies and videotape': THR's 1989 Sundance Film Festival Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2024-02-05.
  15. ^ "How "sex, lies and videotape" Turns Our Gaze Inward - sundance.org". 2024-01-09. Retrieved 2024-02-05.
  16. ^ Ide2022-01-24T10:45:00+00:00, Wendy. "'The Exiles': Sundance Review". ScreenDaily. Retrieved 2024-02-08.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  17. ^ "On Ha Ha Shanghai and the Unflinching Honesty of Christine Choy". Talkhouse. Retrieved 2024-02-05.
  18. ^ Shead, Jonathan (2021-12-16). "'Who Killed Vincent Chin?' Inducted into Library of Congress' National Film Registry". One Detroit. Retrieved 2024-02-08.
  19. ^ List of awards from IMDB https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0159563/awards?ref_=nm_awd
  20. ^ "UGFTV Prof Christine Choy: Outstanding Achievement Award". tisch.nyu.edu. Retrieved 2024-02-06.
  21. ^ "Homes Apart: Korea - Available from TWN".
  22. ^ "The Shot Heard Round The World (1997)". Alexander Street Press. Retrieved 30 May 2018.
  23. ^ Saran, Mishi (Aug 5, 1999). "Christine Choy Turns the Camera on Herself". The New York Times. Retrieved Feb 5, 2024.
  24. ^ Carl, Fred (2003). "Sparrow Village". New York University Research Institute.
  25. ^ Sparrow Village. WorldCat. 2003. OCLC 68961052.
  26. ^ "Christine Choy's 'No Fifth Grade'". Asia Society. April 16, 2012.
  27. ^ "孟絲《兩部記錄片》". 好讀. 2013-12-13.
  28. ^ "中國農村發展紀錄片放映活動". PTT影音娛樂區. Retrieved Nov 20, 2020.
  29. ^ a b "Le Cinéma Club | LEGAL SMUGGLING WITH CHRISTINE CHOY". Le Cinéma Club. Retrieved 2024-02-05.
  30. ^ "Immigrant stories 'Nanny' and 'The Exiles' win top awards at 2022 Sundance Film Festival". The Salt Lake Tribune. Retrieved 2024-02-05.
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