Join us for a very special event that will also serve as the New York launch celebration for New York Times bestselling author Jeff Yang's new book The Golden Screen: The Movies That Made Asian America. This candid conversation with Celine Song, director and writer of A24's Past Lives, one of the most critically lauded films of 2023, will explore the film's unique focus on the "1.5 generation" of Asian immigrants; the process of forgetting and rediscovery that shapes diasporic identity; and how cinematic images, as seen through Asian, Hollywood, and independent lenses, have influenced the way Asians are viewed and view ourselves in American culture. A book signing will follow the conversation. With its mix of historical perspective and present-day relevance, this program is a must-attend for anyone interested in cinema or Asian American culture.

The program will conclude with a book signing with Jeff Yang. Copies of Yang's book, The Golden Screen: The Movies That Made Asian America, will be available onsite at the AsiaStore. 

Speakers 

Celine Song is a director, screenwriter, and playwright whose debut feature, Past Lives, opened to overwhelmingly high praise at its Sundance premiere. Loosely based on and inspired by Song’s own life experience, Past Lives, which she wrote and directed, was released by A24 in Summer 2023. Past Lives and Song have received wide acclaim from audiences and critics alike, having won Best Feature Film at the 2023 Gotham Awards and two Hollywood Critics Association Awards for Best Indie and Best Screenplay, as well as five Independent Spirit Award nominations, a Directors Guild of America nomination for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in First-Time Theatrical Feature Film and a BAFTA Film Award nomination for Original Screenplay. As a playwright, Song is best known for Endlings, which premiered in 2019 at the American Repertory Theater and had its New York debut in 2020 at the New York Theatre Workshop. She has been a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and a semifinalist for the American Playwriting Foundation's Relentless Award. Song also wrote on the first season of the Amazon series The Wheel of Time.

Jeff Yang is a veteran cultural critic, regular CNN contributor, and former columnist for the Village Voice, San Francisco Chronicle, and Wall Street Journal. His books include I Am Jackie Chan, the action icon's autobiography; Once Upon in Time in China, a history of the cinemas of Greater China; and, most recently, the New York Times bestseller RISE: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now (HarperCollins), with Philip Wang and Phil Yu, and now The Golden Screen: The Movies That Made Asian America (Hachette). A native of New York, he currently lives in Los Angeles. 

Partners

The Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice. Since our founding in 1991, we have been dedicated to the belief that Asian American stories deserve to be told. At a time when migrants, women, people of color, Muslims, and LGBTQ people are specifically targeted, we offer a new countercultural public space in which to imagine a more just future.

In 1975, grassroots media activists Peter Chow, Danny Yung, Thomas Tam, and Christine Choy founded ACV under the name CCTV (Chinese Cable TV) in a loft then occupied by Tsui Hark in New York’s Chinatown. At a time when diverse cultural groups were claiming their voices and places in a predominantly white landscape, ACV’s founders saw the need to bring greater sociocultural awareness to the experiences and history of Asian Americans. Moving-image media had become the nation’s common language, its most pervasive source of imagery and ideas, and Asian Americans were barely registered on its screens. ACV’s founders wanted to address the problems Asian Americans faced in representation in the media and access to the means of media production and distribution.

The New York Asian Film Foundation Inc. is America’s premier 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to the exhibition and appreciation of Asian film culture in all its forms, with year-round festivals and programs, and a view to building bridges between Asia and America. The New York Asian Film Foundation’s flagship event is the annual New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF), which has been presented in collaboration with Film at Lincoln Center since 2010. Now in its 23rd year, NYAFF is North America’s leading festival of Asian cinema.

We unite the Asian Pacific community around common causes, invest capital and resources into passionate creators and companies, and show the world how impactful we can be in every industry and endeavor.