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Christine Choy | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Choy in 1986 | |||||||
| Born | Chai Ming Huei 1952 (age 72–73) Shanghai, China | ||||||
| Alma mater | Manhattanville College | ||||||
| Occupation(s) | Filmmaker, director, documentarian, journalist, activist | ||||||
| Known for | Who Killed Vincent Chin? (1988) | ||||||
| Political party | Black Panther Party | ||||||
| Awards | Academy Award for Best Documentary - Nominated (1989), "Who Killed Vincent Chin?" | ||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||
| Chinese | 崔明慧[1] | ||||||
| |||||||
| Korean name | |||||||
| Hangul | 최명혜 | ||||||
| Revised Romanization | Choe Myeonghye | ||||||
| McCune–Reischauer | Ch'oe Myŏnghye | ||||||
Christine Choy (born 1952) is a Chinese-American filmmaker.[2] She is known for co-directingWho Killed Vincent Chin?, a 1988 documentary film based on the murder ofVincent Jen Chin, for which she was nominated for anAcademy Award. She co-foundedThird World Newsreel, a film company focusing onpeople of color andsocial justice issues. As adocumentary filmmaker, she has produced and directed more than eighty films. She is a professor atNew York University's Tisch School of the Arts.[3]
Choy was born inShanghai inthe People's Republic of China[3] asChai Ming Huei to aKorean father and aChinese mother.[4][2]Shortly after Choy's birth, her father abandoned the family to return toSouth Korea. As a result, Choy was raised largely by her mother. Growing up, her family struggled greatly financially.[2]
Following theCultural Revolution, the family fledmainland China viaHong Kong.[5][2] They moved toSouth Korea, where Choy was reunited with her father. During this time, Choy developed a strong appreciation for American films released in South Korea. Although she enjoyed the films, Choy became attuned to the prevalence of casual discrimination towards Asian people in American media.[6]
Choy moved to New York City at the age of 14. She was a volunteer forWBAI in high school and described "[o]ne of her duties" as covering thePanther Twenty-One trial atthe Tombs. During the trial, she earned the trust of theBlack Panther Party, and soon afterwards began doing errands for the New York City chapter.[3]
Choy referred to herself as a "Panther Youth", and said she "did the running around for the big shots."[3]
In 1965,[6] Choy was given a scholarship to attendManhattanville College of the Sacred Heart inNew York, where she studied architecture. While attending, she made friends with a group of hippies that were a part of Newsreel. At Newsreel, Choy worked as an editor and animation director for some amount of time.[2] Soon thereafter, Choy earned a Directing Certificate at theAmerican Film Institute.[7]
Choy has received aGuggenheim Fellowship, aRockefeller Memorial Fellowship, and anAsian Cultural Council Fellowship. Her documentary filmWho Killed Vincent Chin? received a nomination for theAcademy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1989.[7] In 2021, the film was registered in theNational Film Registry.[8]
In 1972, Choy co-foundedThird World Newsreel together with fellow filmmakerSusan Robeson. During her tenure, Choy directed documentary films on the1971 Attica prison uprising, the life of women inUnited States prisons, and the history ofsocial activism inNew York City's chinatown, as well as documentaries on thedivision of the Korean peninsula andNamibia's struggle for independence from South Africa, among others.[9]
In 1974, Choy directed her first feature-length documentary,Teach Our Children. As Choy related to the poverty and the migration issues that people around her faced, she was inspired to make a second documentary, combining the issues she faced in China and South Korea with the struggles she faced in the United States. The finished film,From Spikes to Spindles, was released in 1976, and focused on Chinese migration and Chinese citizens' struggle for equal treatment in America.
Choy was one of the first major female Chinese-American filmmakers. She is frequently painted as a controversial figure. She is considered a political filmmaker[10] and an activist.[2]
One of Choy's most acclaimed films,Who Killed Vincent Chin? (1988), was co-directed withRenee Tajima. The film tells the story ofVincent Jen Chin, a Chinese-American man who was beaten to death with a baseball bat by Ron Ebens and his stepson, Michael Nitz, who held Chin defenseless. They were each sentenced to 3 years probation and a $3,000 fine. Choy struggled in seeking funding for the film due to its high-tension subject matter, shedding light on working-class racism inDetroit at a time when theUS auto industry was failing and Japanese cars were gaining popularity. The film was a pioneer in reconfiguring ethnographic filmmaking and won several accolades.
At the1989 Sundance Film Festival, while there to promote her filmWho Killed Vincent Chin?,[11] Choy shared lodging withSteven Soderbergh, who was in Park City premieringSex, Lies, and Videotape.[12][13][14] Also at the '89 Festival, she confrontedRobert Redford about Sundance's lack of diversity.[15]Who Killed Vincent Chin? was nominated for the Grand Jury documentary award at the Festival; and went on to win aPeabody Award in 1990.[11]
Sa-I-gu (1993), another film that Choy co-directed, was about the effect of the1992 Los Angeles riots onthe Korean American community there, and directly deals with the racial animosity towards Asians in America, but more specifically Asian women.[2]
After decades of directing in the documentary industry, Choy became a professor atTisch School of Arts inNew York City. She has taught a section of the production course "Sight & Sound Documentary" for several years. She also instructs a course called "Directing the Thesis" to third-year students. Additionally, Choy has teaching experience atYale,Cornell,Buffalo State University of New York, andCity University inHong Kong.[7][10]
In her time teaching, she has mentored many filmmakers, with her list of protégés includingTodd Phillips,Raoul Peck, andBrett Morgen.[16]
In 2021,Who Killed Vincent Chin? was inducted into theLibrary of Congress'National Film Registry.[8] It had recently been restored by theAcademy Film Archive andThe Film Foundation to mark the 40th anniversary ofChin's death. At the time, there had also been a recent surge inhate crimes againstAsian Americans in theU.S. amid theCOVID-19 Pandemic.[17]
| Year | Title | Director | Producer | Cinematographer | Writer | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1974 | "Teach Our Children" (Short film) | Yes | Yes | Yes | [2] | ||
| 1975 | Generation of a Railroad Spiker | Yes | [2] | ||||
| 1975 | Fresh Seeds in a Big Apple | Yes | [2] | ||||
| 1976 | From Spikes to Spindles | Yes | [2] | ||||
| 1977 | History of the Chinese Patriot Movement in the U.S. | Yes | [2] | ||||
| 1977 | North Country Tour | Yes | [2] | ||||
| 1978 | Inside Women Inside | Yes | [2] | ||||
| 1978 | Loose Pages Bound | Yes | [2] | ||||
| 1978 | A Dream Is What You Wake Up From | Yes | [2] | ||||
| 1980 | To Love, Honor, and Obey | Yes | [2] | ||||
| 1981 | White Flower Passing | Yes | [2] | ||||
| 1982 | "Bittersweet Survival" (Short film) | Yes | Yes* | *Executive Producer | [2] | ||
| 1982 | Go Between | Yes | [2] | ||||
| 1982-83 | Mississippi Triangle | Yes | [2] | ||||
| 1983 | Fei Teir, Goddess in Flight | Yes | [2] | ||||
| 1984 | Namibia, Independence Now | Yes | [2] | ||||
| 1985 | Monkey King Looks West | Yes | [2] | ||||
| 1986 | "Permanent Wave" (Short film) | Yes | [2] | ||||
| 1988 | Shanhai Lil's | Yes | [2] | ||||
| 1988 | Who Killed Vincent Chin? | Yes | Yes | Nominated -Academy Award for Best Documentary,1989 | [2] | ||
| 1989 | Best Hotel on Skid Row | Yes | [2] | ||||
| 1989 | Fortune Cookie: The Myth of the Model Minority | Yes | [2] | ||||
| 1991 | Homes Apart: Korea | Yes | Yes | Yes | [20] | ||
| 1993 | "Sa-I-Gu" (Short film) | Yes | Yes | Yes | [2] | ||
| 1995 | A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde | Yes | |||||
| 1997 | My America... or Honk If You Love Buddha | Yes | |||||
| 1997 | Wrongful Death: Hattori vs. Peairs | Yes | |||||
| 1997 | The Shot Heard Round The World | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Winner - Best Documentary, Bangkok International Film Festival | [21][22] |
| 1998 | In the Name of the Emperor | Yes | Yes | ||||
| 1998 | "Electric Shadow" (Short film) | Yes | Yes | ||||
| 2001 | Ha Ha Shanghai | Yes | |||||
| 2003 | Sparrow Village | Yes | [23][24] | ||||
| 2007 | No Fifth Grade | Yes | [25] | ||||
| 2007 | Miao Village Medicine | Yes | [26][27] | ||||
| 2008 | "Long Story Short" (Short film) | Yes | Yes | ||||
| 2014 | Ghina | Yes | Yes | Yes | |||
| 2016 | "Rodney King: Koreatown Reacts" (Short film) | Yes | Yes | ||||
| 2016 | "ReOrienting Africa" (Short film) | Yes | Yes | ||||
| 2016 | "Legal Smuggling with Christine Choy" (Short film) | Yes | [28] | ||||
| 2019 | "The Architects of Camellia" (Short film) | Yes |
| Year | Title | Role / Self | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1993 | Sa-I-Gu (Short film) | Self | ||
| 1994- | Asian America | Self | TV series | |
| 2005 | Marc Forster: Von Davos nach Hollywood | Self | TV movie | |
| 2010 | Cellar | Haeri | also Executive Producer | |
| 2013 | "Ego Death" (Short film) | Teacher | ||
| 2016 | "Legal Smuggling with Christine Choy" (Short film) | Self (Voiceover) | Directed by Noah & Lewie Kloster; animated film | [28] |
| 2017 | "Human Resources" (Short film) | Eileen | ||
| 2017 | Scars of Nanking | Self | TV movie | |
| 2022 | The Exiles | Self | Directed by Violet Columbus & Ben Klein (former students at NYU); Winner - Grand Jury Prize, U.S. Documentary competition,2022 Sundance Film Festival | [29] |
| 2022 | "Who Killed Vincent Chin? Revisited" (Short film) | Self |
Christine Choy.
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