Film Series: Queer Migrations & Diasporic Intimacies

The film series Queer Migrations & Diasporic Intimacies, hosted by the Asian Film and Media Initiative, foregrounds intimate queer worlds that often get eclipsed in narratives of migration and diaspora. Reaching from experimental shorts, to personal stories, to activist documentaries from Asia and the Asian diasporas, the series features forms of world-making that while shaped by the forces of global capital and patriarchal nationalism, move beyond the latters’ limiting paradigms. Filmmakers present their works on love, loss, and delightful silliness that include a Turkish homage to James Baldwin (Aykan Safoğlu), a retrieval of unremembered interracial intimacy through found footage (Sylvia Schedelbauer), an exploration of the tumultuous love lives of lesbian Filipina migrant workers (Susan Chen), and a New York-based filmmaker’s captivating attempt to document the last days of the person closest to her (S. Casper Wong). No registration required. 

Co-sponsored by: Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU; Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at NYU; Center for Media, Culture and History; Center for Religion and Media; Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies; NYU Student Affairs; NYU Global Programs; NYU Center for Disability Studies.

Time & Place

All screenings start at 6:00 pm at Michelson Theater
Department of Cinema Studies, 721 Broadway, 6th Floor, Room 648.

Filmmakers in attendance at each screening. Discussion moderated by Professor Feng-Mei Heberer (Asian Film and Media Initiative Interim Director).

Wed, 10/3 The Lulu Sessions (S. Casper Wong, USA, 2011, 86 mins.), followed by roundtable with filmmaker S. Casper Wong and Professor Lana Lin (The New School).

Wed, 11/7 Experimental films by Aykan Safoğlu & Sylvia Schedelbauer

Tues, 11/27 Lesbian Factory (Susan Chen, Taiwan, 2010, 60 mins.)

Wed, 11/28 Rainbow Popcorn (Susan Chen, Taiwan, 2013, 60 mins.)

Films in this Series

The Lulu Sessions
Wednesday, October 3 at 6:00 pm
Michelson Theater, 721 Broadway, 6th floor

The Lulu Sessions (USA, 2011): LuLu is unlike anyone you’ve ever met.  A hard-living, chain-smoking rebel with a tender heart.  A poet with a potty mouth.  Farm girl. Former cheerleader. World-class cancer researcher.  Beloved professor.  Dr. Louise Nutter, or LuLu has just discovered a new anti-cancer drug when she finds out she is dying of breast cancer herself at 42.  Shot during those last 15 months of LuLu’s life, The LuLu Sessions is a raw, intimate, yet surprisingly humorous story about the filmmaker showing up for her best friend and ex-something, and together, testing the limits of their bond while taking on life’s ultimate adventure.

This screening will be followed by a roundtable with the filmmaker S. Casper Wong and Professor Lana Lin (The New School).

S. Casper Wong is an award-winning writer, director and producer of both narrative and documentary films based in New York. Prior to receiving her MFA in film directing from NYU, Tisch School of the Arts, Casper was Senior Attorney for IBM, specializing in international intellectual property and antitrust law.  She holds a J.D. from New York Law School and a B.S. in Bio-medical Engineering from Columbia University. She is also a reiki practitioner and an award-winning cartoonist.  The LuLu Sessions marks her feature documentary debut; it won a dozen of awards.

Lana Lin is a filmmaker, artist, and writer whose creative practice concerns embodied vulnerabilities. Her experimental films and multi-disciplinary projects (as Lin + Lam) have been shown at the Museum of Modern Art, Stedelijk Museum, and China-Taipei Film Archive. She has received multiple awards, including the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Lin is an Associate Professor in the School of Media Studies at The New School, New York and author of Freud’s Jaw and Other Lost Objects (Fordham, Nov 2017).

Experimental films by Aykan Safoğlu & Sylvia Schedelbauer
Wednesday, November 7 at 6:00 pm
Michelson Theater, 721 Broadway, 6th floor

Aykan Safoğlu (Germany/Turkey) and Sylvia Schedelbauer (Germany/Japan) present a selection of their archival footage films encompassing a Turkish homage to James Baldwin and a retrieval of unremembered interracial intimacy.

Working across film, photography and performance, Aykan Safoğlu makes open-ended enquiries into cultural belonging, creativity and kinship, including the forging of speculative histories of famous figures such as writer James Baldwin, or artists Paul Thek and Ulay. Born in Istanbul, Safoğlu studied at Universität der Künste, Berlin, and Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College. Among others, he was a resident at Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam and, most recently, a fellow at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart.

Born in Tokyo Sylvia Schedelbauer moved to Berlin in 1993, where she studied at the University of Arts Berlin. Her award-winning films negotiate the space between broader historical narratives and personal, psychological realms mainly through poetic manipulations of found and archival footage. Selected screenings include Berlinale, Toronto International Film Festival, International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, London Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Robert Flaherty International Film Seminar and Stan Brakhage Symposium.

Lesbian Factory
Tuesday, November 27 at 6:00 pm
Michelson Theater, 721 Broadway, 6th floor

Rainbow Popcorn
Wednesday, November 28 at 6:00 pm
Michelson Theater, 721 Broadway, 6th floor

The documentary couplet  Lesbian Factory (2010, 60 mins.) and Rainbow Popcorn (2013, 60 mins.) shot by migrant worker activists in Taiwan, follows a group of Filipina migrant worker organizers and their tumultuous same-sex love relationships while abroad and, several years later, after returning home. Perhaps for the first time in film history, the documentaries bring together migrant labor activism with queer love, to unpack the complex, multi-layered texture of our globalized moment.

Jingru Wu is a long-time labor activist from Taiwan who currently holds the position of researcher at the Taiwan International Workers’ Association. Together with Susan Chen, she has shot the documentaries Lesbian Factory and Rainbow Popcorn both of which have shown at numerous film festivals worldwide. Wu and Chen are currently planning their next follow-up documentary on Filipina migrant workers.

Co-sponsors