Celebrating AAPI Heritage Month: A Focus on Chloé Zhao

Songs My Brothers Taught Me, Chloé Zhao (2015)

May is the Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, an annual commemoration of these communities' contributions to and influence on the history of the United States. Every year, the occasion presents itself as an opportunity to appreciate the diversity within AAPI communities, as well as recognizing their deep connection to all facets of American culture. The importance of AAPI heritage is all the more significant this year, as it takes place against the backdrop of a rise in anti-Asian hate crimes and increased online harassment witnessed since the start of the pandemic.  

This month, Filmatique is honored to celebrate the incredible work of leading Chinese writer, director and producer Chloé Zhao, whose films reflect a uniquely poetic vision of American narratives. Guided by an inherent passion for untold stories, Zhao has dedicated her filmmaking career to rarely explored facets of American life, ultimately reinventing and emboldening American cinema. Zhao moved from Beijing to the UK and US, where she where she would enroll in the Graduate Film program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. It was during her time at NYU that she developed her first short film Daughters (2010), which traces the journey of a young girl attempting to escape an arranged marriage in rural China. 

Initially developed during her graduate studies, Zhao's first feature Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2015) became an instant festival success, screening at both Sundance and Cannes. Blending narrative and documentary techniques, the film follows a young Oglala Lakota boy torn between remaining on South Dakota's Pine Ridge reservation, where he grew up, and following his girlfriend to Los Angeles. The film featured local Native Americans playing versions of themselves, creating a poignant and lyrical story of marginalization and humanity. In Nomadland (2020), the director's use of non-professional actors once more allowed her to capture the emotional truth of an itinerant community, imbuing the American western with a universal dimension. Zhao became the first Chinese woman to win Best Director at the Academy Awards for Nomadland, an accolade which will surely garner significant and overdue visibility for the AAPI community within an industry that has long marginalized their voices. 

Filmatique is proud to offer films by other ground-breaking and influential Asian and AAPI filmmakers, such as Chistopher Makoto's August at Akiko's (filmed among indigenous communities in Hawai'i); Phuttiphong Aroonpheng's Manta Ray (Thailand); Last Train Home by Lixin Fan (China); A Hard Day by Seong-hun Kim (South Korea) and Lav Diaz's The Woman Who Left (Philippines). 

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Alexandra Concordia
Guest Curator, Filmatique