Crossings

Decades before the violent incidents in the New York subway during the Covid era, an interracial murder in the 1990s inspired Evans Chan’s CROSSINGS (1994)—a film described as a “unique merging of Hong Kong cinema and New York independent film” (Hong Kong Filmography). Instead of following her parents’ wishes and flying to Toronto, Mo-yung (Anita Yuen) travels to NYC in search of her boyfriend, Benny (Simon Yam), a mysterious photographer. There, she meets Rubie (Lindzay Chan), a sympathetic Chinatown worker who helps her settle in the city. However, both women’s lives are destined to be shattered as toxic masculinity, transphobia, the sexualization of Asian women, and the Chinatown underworld collide—both inside and beyond the labyrinthine New York subway. “[Crossings] provides a complex picture of the global Chinese as the narrative explores a series of ‘crossings’ from Hong Kong to New York, from innocence to corruption, from sanity to madness, and from life to death. Chan’s evocation of lives ‘in-between’ cultures, genders, classes, and nations places it among the most ambitious meditations on contemporary Hong Kong to be produced to date.” (Gina Marchetti, From Tian’anmen to Times Square: Transnational China and the Chinese Diaspora on Global Screen, 1989-1997) Post-screening Q&A with director Evans Chan, moderated by Gina Marchett

This event is open to the public.