Film Screening & Q&A: Blurring the Color Line

Join the Film Studies Program and the Deaprtment of Languages, Literatures, & Cultures for a film screen of Blurring the Color Line and Q&A with the director Crystal Kwok, lecturer in the Department of History at The University of Hong Kong.

Kwok is an award-winning filmmaker and radio/TV talk show host. She holds a Ph.D. in performance studies from the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa. Navigating both in front and behind the camera as a former actress and a filmmaker, Kwok made waves in the Hong Kong film and media industry, pushing boundaries addressing socially sensitive topics around women, sexuality, and the body.

Blurring the Color Line (Crystal Kwok, 2022) breaks racial barriers by going beyond the narratives of black and white. Much has been written about segregation upon Black people in the South, but nothing that discusses the social placement of Chinese Americans during this time. Blurring the Color Line is inspired by Crystal Kwok’s grandmother’s story about her family’s grocery store in Augusta, Georgia. Her family grew up in a Black neighborhood and they share stories about their personal experiences. Both Asian and Black groups have faced hardships and lack of representation in the media, so this film is needed now more than ever.

Blurring the Color Line streamed nationally on PBS under America ReFramed in 2023. It won multiple awards including Best Documentary at the Silicon Valley Asian Pacific Film Festival, Courage Award at DisOrient Film Festival, and the Mira Nair Rising Female Filmmaker Award at the Harlem International Film Festival.