Of Anna and Dreams

Canadian Premiere

Screening Time
Saturday, May 29, 4:45pm

Film Trailer

Experimental / USA / 2010 / 12 minutes
Director： O Zhang
Producer: Jonathan Hsu
Starring: Chantal Thuy

“I die a thousand times.” – Anna May Wong

The daughter of a humble Chinese laundry-man, Anna May Wong rose to become the most famous Asian American movie actress in the world, Incredibly courageous, she endured many hardships to achieve her success in the 1920s and 30s – arguably the most racially discriminative time in Hollywood. Even to this day, there has been no other Asian actress to rival her acclaim. While many documentaries have been made to honor Anna may Wong, Of Anna And Dreams tells the story with more artistic color, from an internal perspective. It is a film that is about Anna May Wong and beyond, about her internal motivations, her emotional life.

The film is composed of three dream sequences, symbolic interpretations depicting aspects of her life and her love story. Dream sequence 1 is a nightmare exploring her fears. Dream 2 focuses on the confusion of her own identity and her frustration with the anti-Chinese laws and prejudices of the era*; Dream 3 depicts Anna May Wong’s joy of acting in the movie Piccadilly (1929) and a romantic presentation of her tragic romance with a Caucasian man named Eric Maschwitz.

*Note: The Chinese Exclusion Act prevented Chinese immigration and lead to intense anti-Chinese discrimination in America (1882-1943). Chinese in California were forbidden, by law, to marry whites until 1948 when the law was repealed.

Of Anna and Dreams was commissioned by China Town Arts Space and first performed at The Royal Opera House in London.

About O Zhang
New York-based Chinese artist O Zhang is not a stranger to Vancouver. Her large-scale photo series Horizon (Sky) was exhibited in downtown Vancouver in 2009. Born and raised in China, O earned her BA from Central Academy of Art (Beijing) and a MA from Royal College of Art (London). After moving to New York, she has had 82 art exhibitions and film screenings worldwide including Shanghai Museum of Art, New York Queens Museum of Art, London Portobello Film Festival, Kino International Berlin as well as 13 major museum shows. Her published autobiography was a Best Seller in Guangzhou (China) for four weeks. She was a special invited artist for New York Tribeca Film Festival and has been invited to give lectures in Oxford University, New York University, UC Berkeley among others.www.OZhang.com