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Nice Chinese Girls Don’t: Kitty Tsui

A film by Jennifer Abod

US | 2019 | 20 minutes | Color | DVD | English | Order No. W201264 |

Nice Chinese Girls Don’t is a portrait of Kitty Tsui -- an iconic Asian American lesbian, poet, artist, activist, writer, and bodybuilder who came of age in the early days of the Women’s Liberation Movement in San Francisco.

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SYNOPSIS

In Nice Chinese Girls Don’t, Kitty Tsui recounts her emergence as a poet, artist, activist, writer, and bodybuilder in the early days of the Women’s Liberation Movement in San Francisco. She narrates her experience of arriving to the States as an immigrant from Hong Kong by way of her own original poetry and stories.

Tsui wrote the groundbreaking Words of a Woman Who Breathes Fire, the first book written by an Asian American lesbian. She is considered by many to be one of the foremothers of the API, Asian Pacific Islander, lesbian feminist movement.

In 2018, APIQWTC, Asian Pacific Islander Queer Women & Transgender Community honored her with the Phoenix Award for lifetime achievement. In 2019, her alma mater, San Francisco State University inducted Tsui into the Alumni Hall of Fame. Her forthcoming books include Nice Chinese Girls Don’t, Battle Cry: Poems of Love & Resistance, and Fire Power: Poems of Love & Resilience. Tsui currently lives in Oakland, California, and is writing a screenplay, Unmasked.

PRESS

"A personal manifesto and intimate portrait of a pioneering Asian American role model who was decades ahead of her time."

Donald Young Director of Programs Center for Asian American Media (CAAM)

"I enjoyed it immensely. Inviting us into Kitty’s past and present through her own words was brilliant."

Karen Yin writer, editor

"Kitty Tsui’s poetry and “On Our Backs” covers are iconic contributions to Asian American lesbian history. I am delighted that there is a film that finally gives this important figure her due as an Asian American lesbian and that also deals with the subject of aging."

Eve Oishi Associate Professor of Cultural Studies, School of Arts and Humanities, Claremont Graduate University

SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS

  • Best of Festival, Golden Cat Award & Audience Award, Senior Film Festival Poland
  • Best Documentary, Some Prefer Cake Lesbian Film Festival
  • Best Documentary, Cinema Systers
  • freaQweek; an LGBTQIA+ Student Run Film Festival, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
  • Fargo-Moorhead LGBT Film Festival
  • Wicked Queer Film Festival
  • Tampa Bay International Film Festival
  • Malmö Queer Film Festival
  • Les Flicks
  • Frameline - San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival
  • Kashish Mumbai International Queer Film Festival
  • The Women’s Film Festival Philadelphia
  • OUTshine
  • Seattle Queer Film Festival
  • Albany FilmFest
  • QueerBee LGBTQI Festival
  • Queer Screen’s Mardi Gras Film Festival
  • Cinema Diverse Palm Springs
  • Long Beach QFest
  • The Women’s Film Festival
  • Twin Cities Film Festival

ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)

Jennifer Abod

With a Ph.D. in Intercultural Media Education and Women’s Studies, Jennifer Abod is an award-winning documentarian in both audio and video, who was part of the dawning of the second wave of feminism in the U.S.

Her videos include: The Passionate Pursuits of Angela Bowen, The Edge of Each Other’s Battles: The Vision Of Audre Lorde, Look us in the Eye: The Old Women’s Project, and, most recently, Nice Chinese Girls Don't: Kitty Tsui, which had its world premiere at Cinema Systers in May 2018 and won an audience award for best short.

Abod was a radio broadcaster for 19 years. She hosted and produced news, features, live talk shows, documentaries and specials programming on public and commercial radio in Connecticut, Philadelphia and Boston. She was the first woman in Connecticut to host a nightly AM radio talk show, "The Jennifer Abod Show."

As a media specialist at Digital Equipment Corporation, she produced, directed and wrote both audio and video projects.

In the 1970s, Abod was a singer/songwriter with the New Haven Women’s Liberation Rock Band (Papa Don’t Lay that Shit on Me), and co-writer and actor in "The Liberation of Lydia" the first feminist radio soap opera.

In 1988, she created Profile Productions to produce and distribute audio and video projects featuring feminist and lesbian activists, cultural workers, particularly women of color.

Her radio documentary, "Audre Lorde: Radio Profile." was featured on WGBH, FM, Boston as well as several award winning interactive call-in radio shows.

Dr. Abod taught at U. Mass Boston, Worcester State, Hofstra University, and Cal State Long Beach. (03/19)

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