Weekend film screenings highlight members of the Asian LGBTQ community
- Deanna Pistono
- Mar 11
- 4 min read
This weekend, St Paul’s Theatre Mu takes a step away from the stage and toward the screen.
In collaboration with the Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project (QWOCMAP), Theatre Mu is screening four documentaries at Indigenous Roots, 788 E. 7th St., St. Paul, on Saturday in an event called “Belonging and Resistance: Queer AAPI Documentaries.”
“All of the films are created by queer Asian filmmakers,” said Madeleine Lim, the founder and executive/artistic director of QWOCMAP. “Within that perspective, it is an array of different types of experiences within the Asian community.”
Lim has directed two of the four documentaries in “Belonging and Resistance.” Of these two, her more recent work is “The Worlds of Bernice Bing,” an exploration of the titular abstract expressionist painter, including Bing’s childhood experience of being in abusive foster homes and her work with at-risk youth in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Bing, who passed in 1998, has often gone unrecognized for her accomplishments as an artist and community leader.
“For women artists, their only way into (male-dominated artistic) circles was by being associated with a man,” explained Lim. “Some of the more well-known women artists of that time were married or partnered with male artists. Bernice, as a lesbian, did not have that way in. Unfortunately, that meant that she was just not as well known and not as well recognized because she did not have access to those circles and opportunities.”
It’s a story that reinforces why Lim founded QWOCMAP – so queer women of color, like Bing and herself, would have an avenue through which to tell their own stories.
The other of Lim’s documentaries to be screened this weekend, “Sambal Belacan in San Francisco,” is about three Singaporean, lesbian immigrants navigating life in the United States. Aside from one performance in 2020 that Lim’s mother was able to attend, “Sambal Belacan” has been banned from being shown in Singapore since its 1997 release.
“There was this one section of the edit where the visuals were essentially National Day footage – flag waving, elected officials, soldiers marching,” said Lim. Over this section of the film, Lim wanted the viewer to hear an interviewee of non-Chinese descent talking about their experience with racism in Singapore. The majority of Singaporeans are of Chinese descent, and the majority of social, political and economic power in the nation rests within their ethnic group.
“I knew that if I (included the audio about racism in Singapore), the film would not screen in Singapore,” said Lim. Ultimately, she refused to censor the interviewee’s experience, leading to the expected ban. But even six years after its only performance, there are people in Singapore who still advocate for the film.
“I just came back from Singapore a couple of weeks ago, and there is a group of younger folks in film who are trying to get the film reclassified,” said Lim.
The other films to be screened this Saturday are “My Beautiful Resistance” from director Penny Baldado and “Journey to the Nail Salon” by Tracy Nyugen. “My Beautiful Resistance” focuses on the director’s journey from the Philippines to the U.S., while “Journey to the Nail Salon” is about African American and Vietnamese women coming together in understanding in Oakland, California.
For Anh Thu T. Pham, managing director at Theatre Mu, collaborating with QWOCMAP, whose staff she has known for four years through an arts cohort led by the Wallace Foundation, is especially valuable for Asian Americans in Minnesota right now.
“No matter if we are first generation, fifth generation or if we're refugees – right now, so much of the Asian American community (there) is this feeling of being a perpetual foreigner,” said Pham. “That is so clear right now as we are still dealing with the presence of the Department of Homeland Security, ICE and Operation Metro Surge that has really ripped and torn our communities apart.”
Indigenous Roots, the cultural arts center where the screening will be hosted, sees the screening as part of its mission to “use art to celebrate, to commemorate, and to share stories,” said Ruti Mejia, Indigenous Roots’ director of partnerships.
“I hope that for at least the two hours that (the audience) in the space, they're able to feel like they're seen and they can celebrate who they are – being queer, being Asian, being BIPOC,” said Mejia, herself a queer woman of color. “They're able to just breathe and not have to explain their existence to anybody.”
To register for this free screening from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. on March 14, viewers can RSVP here. The documentaries will include English, and in the case of “Sambal Belcan,” Chinese subtitles. Masks are required for the screening and some will be provided for those unable to bring their own.
Comments