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Image: Luka Yuanyuan Yang
Event

Luka Yuanyuan Yang European Premiere of Chinatown Cha Cha

MINT Chinese Film Festival, Keswick Alhambra Cinema
21 & 22 February 2025

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Luka YuanYuan Yang's film Chinatown Cha Cha makes its European debut at the 3rd edition of the MINT Chinese Film Festival, Keswick, with screenings on 21 and 22 February, 2025. MINT is the first women-organised Chinese film festival in the UK, focussed on cross-cultural communication and the representation of women supporting Chinese creators, women/non-binary filmmakers and artists, as well as those from other under-represented groups.

A film that celebrates sisterhood, and the spirit of independent women, Chinatown Cha-Cha originated from Yang's research on Asian American women in show business. While tracing the films of Esther Eng, one of the earliest Asian American female directors, Yang discovered a group of former Chinatown nightclub dancers, who are deeply bonded by their passion for dancing.

As the second or third generation of Chinese immigrants in America (aged between 70-90) these dancers witnessed the rise and fall of the luminous nightclub era of San Francisco's Chinatown. The film's Chinese title, Women's World, is itself a tribute to Esther Eng's now lost 1939 film It's A Women's World, the world's first all Chinese female cast movie.
 
The 92-year-old former owner of the illustrious 'Forbidden City Nightclub' and nightclub starlet Coby Yee decide to get back on stage again, after joining the senior dance troupe Grant Avenue Follies. Together they go on a final tour, bridging once isolated Chinese communities in the US, Cuba, and China.

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