Hong Kong’s first woman director was a San Francisco native and an open lesbian. Esther Eng (1914-1970) was a true pioneer in many senses. She made 11 Cantonese language films—one in Hollywood, five in Hong Kong, three in California, one in Hawaii and one in New York—all for Chinese audiences before, during and after WWII. She gave Bruce Lee his screen debut in his role as a baby girl in her 1941 film Golden Gate Girl . Drawing on the marks she left in both the Chinese and English press, this film begins to recover some of her lost stories. Clips from her two surviving films, stills and posters from her other eight motion pictures, photos from her six personal albums, newsreels of San Francisco as she saw them, as well as hundreds of archival images are all collected to present her life and the tumultuous time in which she lived in a stunning display of visuals. Golden Gate Girls is not just a biographical portrait of Esther Eng; it is also a tribute to pioneer women filmmakers working on both sides of the Pacific, and the courage with which they crossed boundaries of language, culture, race and gender. This screeing is particularly meaningful as it falls on the 100th birth anniversary of Esther Eng.

8/3

(Sat)

2:30pm

Cinema, Hong Kong Film Archive

16/3*

(Sun)

2:30pm

Cinema, Hong Kong Film Archive

* Post-screening talk with Law Kar