Esther Eng and Other Challenges to Women and World Cinema. Columbia University

Dorothy Arzner has long provided the paradigm for subversive feminist filmmaking and the inspiration for a number of key questions concerning the (in)visibility and agency of female filmmakers in 20th century Hollywood. However, as S. Louisa Wei’s documentary Golden Gate Girls (2013) reveals, Arzner’s contemporary Esther Eng, a Chinese-American, openly-lesbian director, producer, and distributor working in Hong Kong, San Francisco, and New York, offers a new paradigm for world feminist theory and filmmaking. Eng represents an intervention in the study of female film pioneers through the questions that her career poses surrounding immigration and queer theory, Chinese feminism, transnational filmmaking, and more. This conference will celebrate Eng’s legacy and reconsider feminist theory and world cinema in light of her contribution through keynote talks, panels, screenings, and roundtable discussions. No registration required.

Original post from Women Film Pioneers Project at Columbia University: