Project title:  "Kieu"
Recipient Organization:  Locus Arts
Fiscal Sponsor:  Film Arts Foundation
Lead artist:  Vu T. Thu Ha
Genre and Date Awarded:  Media Arts, June 2003
Premiere:  San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, March 19, 2006 in San Francisco (Kabuki) and March 26, 2006 in San Jose (Cinema 12)
           
Interdisciplinary artist Vu T. Thu Ha collaborated with Locus Arts and with Asian and Pacific Islander Wellness Center (A&PI Wellness) to create an experimental film based on Truyen Kieu (The Tale of Kieu), Viet Nam’s national epic by Nguyen Du.  In this film, Truyen Kieu has been transformed from a 19th Century poem about a heroine named Kieu, into an experimental narrative about a Viet Namese woman and her life as an immigrant worker and massage parlor worker in the United States.

The collaborators’ goal is to create a video that is simultaneously artistic and educational.  They plan to connect to the target audience by incorporating specific cultural references and Vietnamese metaphors, and by engaging them in script development for the work. 

Their collaboration has several layers.  Locus Arts facilitated discussion of Kieu and feedback for the artist through a series of community filmmaking workshops at Galería de la Raza, “Grrrillah Filmmaking in Three Parts” as well as focused input for the filmmaker—including referrals to cast and crew members within the San Francisco Bay Area.  A&PI Wellness Center enabled an outreach worker to accompany Kieu crew on massage parlor visits, created a list of resources available to Asian massage parlor workers to be used as an insert with the distributed copy of the film, and will assist with the film’s distribution. The collaborating team hopes to show the finished film in massage parlors employing Viet Namese-speaking workers.  As well, the film will be used to create dialogue within the Viet Namese  American community and the larger Asian American community as a whole.  It is premiering as part of the 2006 San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, the Chicago Asian American Showcase and the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Islander Film Festival. 

The artist writes, “We are grateful for the stories that the women who work in massage parlors shared with us. Without their participation, their generous support, advice, and assistance this film would not exist.  We hope that we are able to portray their dignity, courage, and graceful spirits with the same honesty and integrity that they shared with us.”

SYNOPSIS

In every person's life, there are eight doors.  You never know which door will open and what day it will be.  There are even some days when all the doors open.

Kieu transforms Truyen Kieu (The Tale of Kieu), a classic Vietnamese epic poem, into a visually-stunning, modern-day film about self-revelation and renewal.  The first film of its kind, Kieu portrays the experience of a massage parlor worker in San Francisco's Tenderloin district who balances faith in the face of contradictions.  As the story rapidly unfolds within a twenty-four hour period, so does Kieu.  On this day, her life is on the brink of change; a letter from home, visits from a kindred spirit, and unexpected turn of events flow into a collision of past, present and future.  One by one, fragments of her fate merge.  Like Truyen Kieu, Kieu is an honest telling of women's survival, perseverance, and compassion against incredible odds.

Locus Arts is an all-volunteer grassroots organization of Asian American artists and arts supporters dedicated to promoting consciousness and community through the arts.  Established in 2000, it showcases innovative community-based projects featuring emerging Asian American artists.  In three years, it has presented more that 100 events and 300 artists to more than 4,000 people.  Formerly located in Japantown, Locus Arts is now housed at Space 180 in San Francisco’s Mission District.

A&PI Wellness Center educates, supports, empowers, and advocates for Asian and Pacific Islander communities, particularly A&PIs living with or at-risk for HIV/AIDS.  Founded in 1987 as a grassroots response to the HIV/AIDS crisis in communities of color, it is the oldest nonprofit organization in North America targeting A&PI communities around sexual health and HIV/AIDS services.  A&PI Wellness Center is based in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood, provides services regionally, statewide, and nationally, and maintains linkages with non-governmental organizations throughout Asia and the Pacific.

Vu T. Thu Ha is an interdisciplinary artist, known primarily for her films, photography, and conceptual art installations.  Her work strives to create visual dialogue around Asian American issues such as identity, language, assimilation, and immigration.  Vu was born in Viet Nam and immigrated to the United States in 1984 to North Carolina. 

Vu has a range of community organizing experiences.  As a union organizer in Texas, Louisiana, Quebec, and California, she has worked among Viet Namese garment workers and health care workers.  In San Francisco she has also worked as a vocational counselor and community organizer within the Viet Namese American immigrant community. 

She has collaborated and worked on video projects with local nonprofit organizations such as the Purple Moon Dance Project and Asian and artists such as Leslie Mah and Maiana Minahal.  She has guest lectured and conducted workshops with the Vietnamese American Studies Department at San Francisco State University, the Photography Department at City College of San Francisco, the Potrero Hill Neighborhood Center, Writers Corps, Diversity Works, and Asian Sisters in Action.  Her art has been exhibited at SOMARTS gallery, Asia Pacific Cultural Center, Noe Valley Public Library, ProArts Gallery, and other venues.  Her films “each night,” and “Shut Up White Boy” have been screening nationally and internationally.

Selected Filmography

• Director/Producer/Editor,“shut up white boy,” 2002, (16mm to video.  15 minutes)
• Director/Producer/Editor, “each night,” 2001 poem written by Maiana Minahal, (super 8 to video. 2.5 minutes)

Selected Film Screenings

• Hoa No/Bloom (Vietnamese Artists Collective) Galeria de la Raza, San Francisco, 2004
• The Boston Gay  & Lesbian Film/Video Festival, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 2003 and 2004
• Lesbisch Schwule Filmtage Hamburg (Hamburg Lesbian and Gay Film Festival),  CinemaxX 8,  Hamburg, Germany, 2003
• Inside Out Toronto Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival, Cumberland Theatre, Toronto, Canada, 2003
• Chicago Asian American Showcase Chicago, 2003
• San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, 2002 and 2003
• Girls on Film, Artists Television Access, San Francisco, 2002 and 2003
• Seoul Queer International Film & Video Festival, Seoul Queer Archive, Seoul, South Korea, 2002
• EATV (Educational Access Television), Channel 27, 2002
• R x D= [eros] + [ethnicity], Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco, 2002
• MIX:  New York Experimental Film and Video Festival, Anthology Film Archives, New York, NY, 2002
• Homo a Go Go, Capitol Theatre, Olympia
• Ladyfest Bay Area, Victoria Theatre, San Francisco, 2002
• Outfest:  The Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, The Village, Los Angeles, 2002
• The Philadelphia International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Wilma Theatre, Philadelphia, 2002
• The San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, Herbst Theatre, San Francisco, 2002
• LA Freewaves:  TV or not TV (8th Celebration of Experimental Media Arts), Cal Arts/California State University Northridge Art Galleries, Los Angeles, 2002
• Lesbian Film Festival Berlin, Filmhaus Berlin, Berlin, Germany, 2002
• ImageOut:  Rochester Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Little Theatre/Rochester, 2002
• Antimatter:  Experimental Short Film and Video Festival, Victoria, Canada, 2002
• Ladyfest Bay Area 2002, Victoria Theater, San Francisco, 2002
• Lotus Roots, Video In, Vancouver, 2002

Selected Group and Solo Exhibitions

• War and Silence, SomArts Gallery,  San Francisco, 2003
• FOB (Presented by Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Association), Nguoi Viet Gallery, Westminster, CA, 2002
• Myth and Memory:  an Exhibition of Vietnamese American Photographers, works gallery, San Jose, 2002
• Census 2000:  Asian Pacific Americans, ProArts Gallery, Oakland, 2001
• Limited Edition:  Recent Work by Emerging Asian Pacific American Artists, Asia Pacific Cultural Center, Oakland, 2001
• APAture:  A Window on the Art of Young Asian Pacific American Artists, Kearny Street Workshop (presenters), 2000

Grants and Awards

• Serpent Source Foundation for Women Artists, (film grant) 2001
• World Studio Foundation/Kraus Family Foundation Award, 2001
• Rainbow Grocery Cooperative/Sponsorship Committee grant, 2000