Motley Movie Medley 2007

This entry refers to an event that has already passed. All information here is for historical reference only.

The Motley Movie Medley is a film festival created to celebrate the diverse cultures and achievements of the mixed community (mixed race, multi-ethnic, and transnational adoptee groups). The festival will be a week long event (March 5-10th 2007) in which 4 feature films will be shown (one every evening). The last day will be dedicated to aspiring student film artists from our very own campus. More information at the Motley Movie Medley's Facebook group.

Schedule

Monday, March 5th: • The Beautiful Country: As in the case of many children of U.S. soldiers and Vietnamese women in Vietnam, after the Vietnam War, Bihn is treated as a social outcast and forced from his village. A search for his mother turns into an attempt to escape to the U.S. with his much younger half brother.

Tuesday, March 6th: • Frida: Depicting the life of artist Frida Kahlo, the movie, Frida, portrays the intricate relationship between Frida and her husband and mentor, Diego Rivera. The film also portrays her life as a mixed queer woman of color during the politically divided era of the Cold War. • Something Other Than Other: New parents, Jerry and Andrea, made this documentary for their multi-racial son in hopes that he may grow up as something other than “other.” It investigates the topic of racial identity in order to better understand issues that their child may have to deal with throughout his life.

Wednesday, March 7th: • Catfish in Black Bean Sauce: Now adult siblings, Dwayne and Mai, were once refugees in Vietnam when Harold and Dee Williams, an African-American couple from Los Angeles adopted them. Now Mai has located Dwayne’s and her birth mother, Thahn, and flies her to L.A. • Multi-Facial: Written and directed by Vin Diesel, Multi-Facial surfaces the problems that accompany a multi-ethnic actor as he auditions for parts.

Thursday, March 8th: • The Doe Boy: Hunter, a young man of mixed heritage growing up in the heart of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, deals with the feeling of not fitting in racially. He must also deal with being a hemophiliac when society places so much on blood identity. • The L Word: This T.V. series follows the lives and loves of a small, close-knit group of lesbians living in Los Angeles. The focus of this episode highlights Jennifer Beals struggle for her character, Bette, to identify as a mixed African American and White woman rather than be portrayed as a monoracial woman.

Friday, March 9th: • Kill Bill (Vol. 1): A woman wakes up from a coma, realizing her life was ripped from her. She vows revenge on the assassination team that betrayed her. One assassin, O-Ren Ishii—a woman of Chinese, Japanese, and American decent—defends her mixed identity, drawing attention to the mixed community. • Black Indians: An American Story: In the early days of the Republic, little or no thought was given to people of mixed race. “We were told ‘if you could pass for white, that's who you'd be; if not, it was usually better to be identified as black than Indian,’" recalls Executive Producer Steven Heape. "It was this kind of thinking that later led to ‘pencil genocide’—changing one’s race on a birth certificate to fit the skin color of the child.

Saturday, March 10th: (starting at 6pm not 8pm) • Student Films: TBA • Taxi Vala: This experimental documentary explores a complex range of issues within New York's growing South Asian communities. The work focuses on the intersection between a second-generation bi-racial Indian-American (the filmmaker) and a group of recent immigrants who drive taxicabs in New York City. • The Science of Sleep: Stéphane, a shy insecure young man of Mexican and French descent, agrees to leave Mexico for Paris to be closer to his widowed mother. He lands a boring job and falls in love with his neighbor Stéphanie. Lacking fluency in French, he copes with reality by escaping into a dream world.