Alexandra “Alle” Hsu
APAture 2019 Featured Artist Spotlight
Visit Alle’s website here and read more on NBC Asian America. Photo courtesy of the artist.
OPEN DOORS (Film Showcase), Sunday, October 20 at Roxie Theater
Co-presented by Center for Asian American Media, Asian American Women Artists Association, SFFilm, Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment and Cinefemme.
Alexandra "Alle" Hsu was born and raised in Southern California. She is a Chinese American storyteller and filmmaker, who received her MFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts in Film Production and Film Directing and her BA from Scripps College of the Claremont Colleges. After making several award-winning short films around the world, she is currently developing her first feature film QUEENS as a resident in the SFFILM FilmHouse Residency.
We are super excited to showcase the San Francisco Premiere for two of Alle’s films, Sophie and Our Way Home at OPEN DOORS, this Sunday, October 20, 3-5:30pm at Roxie Theater! If you haven’t read, Alle was also featured in an NBC Asian America article, right alongside Ali Wong, Hasan Minhaj and Irene Tu!
Plan ahead and get your tickets! Learn more about Alle and the inspiration behind her films in the Q&A between her and the curators of OPEN DOORS below:
Growing up in Southern California in the 90s, how did you see yourself in media and in art? We really loved Justin Lin’s Better Luck Tomorrow and how it challenged Asian Pacific American experiences in media. What were the first movies you loved?
Honestly, I rarely saw myself depicted in media and art. From a very early age, I was inspired by influential artistic and creative figures within my own family - my mother is an artist, and formerly a fashion designer, my aunt was an interior designer, I have cousins who are photographers, filmmakers, artists, and in fashion business, and my father always took me to see the performing arts, locally in Orange County, California, at Segerstrom Center of the Arts. He loves movies and photography. I was also aware that my great-grandfather was a very respected poet in China in the 1920s. It wasn’t until I visited China for the first time at the age of 8, that I knew and began to understand his influence in China. I grew up in Orange County, California, but not in an area with a large Asian/Asian American population. I was 1 of 3 Asian students in my class in elementary school. I grew up thinking that I was... American. It was in high school when I first fell in love with film -- it was a combination of the movies Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love and Paul Haggis’s Crash which inspired me to explore the idea of working in film. I felt that Crash represented and depicted Los Angeles in an innovative way, that I hadn’t seen before. I was fascinated and intrigued by In the Mood for Love, and later understood why the film is pure cinema. I remember watching and really enjoying Joy Luck Club with my family. I believe I watched Better Luck Tomorrow in college, and yes, I agree that it challenged APA experiences in media.
In your work, for example, Sophie and Our Way Home, we see a rich familial and communal history. Can you tell us about how you source your inspirations, and how you craft films and narratives to share these with multicultural audiences?
Thank you for seeing that commonality of rich familial and communal history, in my short films. I was living in and based in Singapore when I was about to make Sophie. Attending NYU Tisch School of the Arts at the time, it was part of the curriculum that we make a short film that year. I was grateful to be based in Asia. And knew immediately that I wanted to make a short film in Hong Kong. Since my mother grew up in Hong Kong, and my grandparents lived there until they passed away, I visited Hong Kong every year when I was growing up. I felt connected, yet also disconnected to Hong Kong. I knew I wanted to make a short film about a young girl -- inspired by my time there, and also my mother’s time there. Through script-workshopping in class at NYU Tisch with Professor Todd Solondz, the story evolved into a creative story about a mother abandoning her daughter. In college at Scripps College of the Claremont Colleges, my focus was in documentary filmmaking. I made a documentary called Women: From Cultural Revolution to Capitalist Revolution where I interviewed about 20 people about the status of women in urban China - focusing in Shanghai, where my family is from originally. Something I learned, and later discovered as quite common in Asia, I realized that many children are raised by their grandparents, for a variety of reasons. I know that my father and his sisters were raised by their grandmother (my great-grandmother) in Asia, for several years in the late 1940s-early 1950s.
Our Way Home is inspired by a photograph of my father from about 1962. The photograph depicts my father, my aunt (my father’s sister), and a family friend, all standing around a 1950s Ford Falcon. At the time, it had been awhile since I had directed anything for myself. I had been producing continuously for friends and fellow NYU classmates for a couple years. I randomly showed the photograph to friends, and was always taken aback by their reactions -- “who are these people? When was this taken? Where are they? What are they doing? There were Asian people in America in the 1960s? This looks like a movie poster…” After meeting actor Anthony Ma for the first time, I decided I wanted to make a short film with him. I gave him three story ideas to work off of. And he chose for us to work on a short film based on a photograph of my dad’s family. We narrowed it down to this one. I had never made a thriller or suspense film, but I love movies like Zodiac, Rear Window, Vertigo, Seven, and Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
Since I grew up watching many films that didn’t depict Asian Americans, I feel that I’ve developed an understanding of what multicultural audiences would want to see. It wasn’t until college, being part of the Asian American Student Union at Scripps College, where I was inspired to tell more stories about APAs. With my two closest friends from college, Tina Hsu and Candace Kita, we started a blog highlighting APIs doing *everything* - the blog was called Asians Doing Everything. It was through them that I saw the importance of telling API/APA stories.
Between the early stages of a project and when you finish, does a lot change? What surprised you while you were making Sophie and Our Way Home?
Yes, I feel that stories and films evolve in the different stages of filmmaking. Both short films, Sophie and Our Way Home evolved through production and post-production. I co-wrote Sophie with a fellow NYU Tisch graduate, Dominique Holmes, and worked with writer Michael Cumes on Our Way Home. For Sophie, the original script had double to triple the amount of dialogue. The film primarily evolved in the edit room. On Our Way Home, due to budgetary and production restrictions, the film was streamlined from the original script.
On Sophie, I was surprised and moved by how I was able to direct in another language. While I understand Cantonese, our main actor, Charlotte Choi Nam Cheung, who played Sophie didn’t speak English, but spoke Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese. And while actors Alannah Ong (Shirley) and Siuman Ko (Mary) spoke English, and my Assistant Director Georgia Fu spoke Mandarin Chinese, I realized the benefits of directing actors who don’t speak your language. It makes directors stronger in watching performances over the delivery of the dialogue.
On Our Way Home, my team and I went through an experience, that felt like “life imitating art.” It happened on our last day of shooting. We were trying to wrap up some daytime driving scenes. Our actor, Anthony had a flight out that evening, so there was that added time pressure. To film the driving scenes, my cinematographer Enrique Unzueta and I had found a small road in a residential area. This was ideal because we didn’t encounter too many modern cars parked outside the houses, and it was a small road away from major traffic. As we started shooting, I instructed Anthony to drive along the road, and Enrique, our sound person, Kym Lukacs, and I ducked behind the backseat, watching the footage on the monitor. I got distracted by watching the performances and before I realized what was happening, we had driven into somebody’s long driveway. This driveway was at the end of the small road we were shooting on. The homeowners came out and we gave them a friendly wave and quickly apologized. It was obvious we were shooting a film. A camera was mounted to the hood of the car and our actors were in period clothing. Other neighbors driving around rolled down their windows, greeted us, full of smiles, curiosity, and excitement. Then, one group drove by and asked us what we were doing. They didn’t express any excitement for what we were trying to do. It turned out to be the same people whose driveway we had traversed earlier. Shortly after, we had pulled into the driveway next door; the house was under construction, so nobody was there. We were not harming or inconveniencing anybody; we were changing camera positions. However, this humorless group in the car pulled into the driveway and blocked our way out. We had no idea what they were doing. Finally, Anthony and I got out and approached them. They said we were trespassing and that they had called the cops on us. The father was an incredible jerk. He glared at all of us and demanded our names and IDs. The mother and father claimed that their son had been receiving death threats and that film/news crews had been coming onto their property. The son rolled down the window from the backseat stating that his parents didn’t know what we were doing. Our two Caucasian team members— one of the producers and our Eastern European assistant director—came over and called out the family for keeping the team under hostage, claiming that what they were doing was illegal and that we would call the cops on them. The family, in the end, backed down, particularly after we offered to show them some of the footage. We were finally able to leave and continue shooting. We didn’t have much sunlight left and Anthony was also concerned about his flight. It had been a stressful situation. But, at the end, we were able to nab our last daylight shots. Most of everyone else in the area was friendly and didn’t treat us completely like aliens. It’s incredible how our real-life situation shooting the film and making the story come to life, in some ways mimicked the theme of racism that was depicted in the film.
Read the NBC Asian America article on KSW’s impact on the careers of Ali Wong, Hasan Minhaj, Irene Tu and Alle Hsu.
Tell us about the projects you're excited about and working on right now.
I’m currently developing my first feature film Queens and a narrative limited series about the Vincent Chin case. I am developing Queens as a resident in the SFFILM FilmHouse Residency, and was recently named a Finalist for the Fall 2019 SFFILM Westridge Grant. Queens is the inspired true story of a shy Chinese American girl from Queens, New York who finds herself thrust into the spotlight of the 1964 World’s Fair Miss Unisphere pageant, but struggles to find her voice in each of her worlds -- her Shanghainese family, the Chinese-American community, and the new universe she discovers at the World’s Fair. Being accepted and invited to become a resident/an SFFILMMAKER is the reason why I moved up to San Francisco from Southern California. With actor-filmmaker, Anthony Ma, we are producing and developing a narrative limited about the 1980s Vincent Chin case. We have our pilot script written, and are now working on a series outline, series bible, and developing 1-2 more episodes. It’s both exciting and nerve-racking to be developing these projects. But, I’m passionate in telling both stories, and would love to see them be made next year.
The theme for this year's APAture is DECLARE. How, in your work, do you see yourself making declarations?
In my work, I’m declaring that stories of Asian Americans, particularly Chinese Americans are told and promoted to a wider audience. The characters in my upcoming work are declaring their positions in life, making a difference in society, and choosing their own path. In my earlier work, the films declare our existence, our presence, and are declaring our histories and stories.
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See Alle’s films and all of this year’s short films in APAture’s 20th Anniversary Festival, this Sunday, October 20, 3-5:30PM at OPEN DOORS!
APAture 2019: DECLARE also runs through October 27 with NEVER STOP MOVING (a performing arts showcase) on Fri, Oct. 25 and the closing artist talk to BOUNDLESS on Sun, Oct. 27. Get your presale tickets and festival passes to all of the events here!