Cinematic Harvests screenings, 2022. 41 Ross, Chinatown, San Francisco, CA. Documentation by YY Zhu.
Cinematic Harvests was a three-part screening series I organized while in residence at the Chinese Culture Center’s (CCC) 41 Ross space during the summer of 2022 as part of my solo exhibition Table to Farm. The series paired independent films centering food, restaurants and farming with small themed dishes that responded to each evening's film program. With the support of CCC staff, I acted as the primary film programmer and worked closely with Canyon Cinema, KADIST and the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM) in order to organize three hourlong film programs, including a filmmaker Q&A to close out the series. Selected films ranged from documentaries to experimental shorts and emphasized familial relationships, ritual and labor, as well as movements through history, memory, fantasy and myth. Themes of love, tactility, and elastic time threaded through the works as they inhabited home kitchens, ghostly restaurants and dreamy fields. I partnered with local caterers and food businesses to offer free food for attendees, including a “food pop-up for ancestors” from Dabao Singapore.
We had a full house for each screening, including community members who had before never attended a screening of experimental films. Descriptions and beautiful promo images (by Jane Trieu) for each screening can be found at this link. I also wrote some brief program notes, which you can access here: Canyon Cinema screening (8/18/2022); KADIST screening (8/25/2022); Bloodline screening and Q&A (9/1/2022).
Q&A on September 1, 2022 with filmmaker James Q. Chan and Chef Tu David Phu. Documentation by YY Zhu.
Special gratitude goes to the CCC team (especially Jane Trieu, YY Zhu, Hoi Leung and Stephan Xie), Anny Cheng for video documentation, TT Takemoto for guidance, the Bloodline team (Tu David Phu, James Q. Chan, Santhosh Daniel), Canyon Cinema (Brett Kashmere, Seth Mitter), KADIST (Amanda Nudelman, Jo-ey Tang, Lauren Pirritano), CAAM (Thúy Tran, Grace Hwang Lynch), Viet at Gao Viet Kitchen, Wong Lee Bakery, and Emily Lim at Dabao Singapore. And, of course, a big thank-you to our audience members, who showed up with generosity and curiosity, breathed the life into this film series, and made it more than I could have dreamed was possible.