Joyful Life is a collaborative documentary with Hansen’s disease (leprosy) patients residing at Taiwan’s Lo-Sheng (Joyful Life) one of the few remaining sanatoriums in the world. In 2002 more than one-third of Lo-Sheng was destroyed due to public and private urban development projects. Residents partake in filming their own story, creating an intimate portrait of a historically marginalized community and their inspiring determination to protect what they call their home.

In She Wants to Talk to You, a recording of three 13-year old Nepali girls on the subjects of being girls in Nepal, marriage, friendship, loneliness, their dreams, and god, inspire three émigré women from Nepal to reflect on their own exile, struggle and quest for liberation.

Anita Chang is an artist scholar who works with various media forms, including film, digital video, photography, installation and the web. Her award-winning films screen and broadcast internationally, and have been presented at the Whitney Museum, Walker Arts Center, and the National Museum of Women. She is the author of Third Digital Documentary: A Theory and Practice of Transmedia Arts Activism, Critical Design and Ethics, and has published in American Quarterly, Verge, positions, Concentric and Taiwan Journal of Indigenous Studies. She is assistant professor of communication at Cal State East Bay.

https://anitachangworks.com/

Watch trailer for Joyful Life here

Joyful Life Screenings: University of London SOAS Centre of Taiwan Studies / 22nd Fukuoka Asian Film Festival / The Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival / Austin Asian American / Echo Park Film Center Human Rights Film Festival / Taiwan International Documentary Film Festival / International Workshop & Symposium Regarding Hansen’s Disease / Taiwan Public Television  

She Wants to Talk to You Award: Ann Arbor Film Festival Isabella Liddell Art Award 

Screenings: Voice of America / National Museum of Women in the Arts / Rubin Museum of Art / Barcelona Contemporary Culture Center / Amherst Five Colleges / Albany Institute of History and Art / Amsterdam Cinemasia / Whitney Museum / Women Make Waves Film Festival/Tour / Paris Light Cone / Museum of Fine Arts Houston / SF World Affairs Council / SFSU Visual Anthropology Dept. / U. of California at Riverside Film Festival / U. of Wisconsin Madison Cinematheque / Taipei Artist Village / Bay Area Now 3/Yerba Buena Ctr for the Arts / Hawaii Int’l Film Festival / Singapore Substation Gallery / San Diego Asian / Austin CinemaTexas / SF Cinematheque / Kearny Street Workshop / United Nations Assn. Film Festival / NY Int’l Asian / India’s Kerala Int’l / Athens Int’l / Santa Cruz Women of Color Film Festival / Boston Asian / Tufts University / Women in the Director’s Chair / UC Berkeley Visual Anthropology Dept. / Dallas Asian / San Francisco Int’l Asian / Pacific Film Archive / Film Arts Festival of Independent Cinema / Kathmandu South Asian Documentary / KQED Public TV Broadcast / Voice of America Satellite Broadcast

A post-discussion will be moderated by Jeff M. Giordano.

$6 all-day parking at St. Mary’s Square Garage