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Short Films by Paul Kwan, Arnold Iger & Paul Lundahl
Short Films by Paul Kwan, Arnold Iger & Paul Lundahl

Sat, Oct 07

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Clarion Performing Arts Center

Short Films by Paul Kwan, Arnold Iger & Paul Lundahl

Showing "Anatomy of A Springroll" , "I Was A Teenage Chef for the C.I.A." (preview)

Time & Location

Oct 07, 2023, 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM

Clarion Performing Arts Center, 2 Waverly Pl, San Francisco, CA 94108, USA

About the Event

Anatomy of a Springroll is an award-winning documentary that follows one man's journey to reconcile his Vietnamese roots with his current American life. In 1973, Paul Kwan's father bribed a customs official to allow the youngest of his 24 children to flee the political chaos that was Saigon. Now, living in San Francisco 20 years later, Kwan looks to the language of food to best reconcile his past. From the colorful, food-filled streets of San Francisco's outdoor markets to the back streets of the Saigon he left years ago, Kwan seeks the secret ingredient to blend the traditions of his birth culture with his adopted American life. He discovers, however, that the real secret is his 73-year-old mother and her belief that to understand a culture, one must first learn the language of its food. When the death of his father brings Kwan back to Saigon, a flood of memories greet him. Although the city has changed, the sweet rice of his childhood provides a familiar welcome. Anatomy of a Springroll is a visual feast celebrating the ability of food to capture a culture's tradition and to comfort its generations. Collaborators Paul Kwan, Arnold Iger and Paul Lundahl combine fantasy and documentary by mixing food-as-metaphor with humorous family footage, animation, puppetry, history, and performance.

In 1979, Kwan and Iger began their collaborations after they spent 6 months traveling around the world on a student budget. While in India, they were inspired by some itinerant performers, using a painted scroll with small pictorial images. As one person unroll the scroll, he or she would points at a picture as another person perform live music while another dance to rhythm to exaggerated the movement, it was like watching a multimedia performance in the rawest and purest form.

They return and began their performance art pieces, using super 8, 16mm black and white films, slide projectors and something with live musicians on the side of the stage, other times with taped music.

They also collaborated on visual arts by showing their works in local galleries, and art installations. They wanted to broaden their audiences by creating education videos for local and national PBS.

They have been working together for 20 years on various different projects, they argue and fight like cat and dog on each of their collaborations.

Check out their website: 

persona-grata-productions.org

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

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

Tickets

  • P.Kwan/A.Iger

    $10.00
    +$0.25 service fee
    Sale ended

Total

$0.00

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