TOUCH

English

2013, 67:11 min, color, sound, HD video, Chinese

Write Silver, "A man returns, after fifty years, to Chinatown to care for his dying mother. He is a librarian, a re-cataloguer, a gay man, a watcher, an impersonator. He passes his time collecting images that he puts before us, his witnesses and collaborators. Sitting in the dark, we share his cloak of invisibility, both a benefit and a curse."

Silver continues, "The film is an essay, narrated from one man's point of view. But it is also fiction, for this man is made up, an amalgam of research, interviews, off-the-record comments, secrets, improbabilities, and free-floating desires. This man, who never tells us his name, returns as both insider and outsider, to a neighborhood from which he, as a teenager, escaped as fast as he could."

"After 50 years away, a gay man returns to his old neighborhood -- New York City's Chinatown -- to care for his dying mother. Like him, the city has changed and yet the past still haunts his familiar streets. TOUCH is a poignant and lyrical video diary, a tapestry of vérité camerawork, stolen moments and probing observations, challenging the manner in which we engage with the communities that created us and how we embrace and chronicle images of the everyday." -Bradford Nordeen, Outfest

Film by: Shelly Silver. Assistant Editor: Xin Guan. Voice: Lu Yu. Translation: Jinghua Wang, Cassandra Guan, Fu Ying, Jeremy Chien. Sound Recordist: Eric Offin, Perry Levy, Gigantic Sound. Archival Photographs: The National Archive, The Museum of Chinese in America. Research Consultants: Baayork Lee, Gladys Chang, Cheng Hong Chen, Choi Ping Chi, Charlie Lai, Nina Lam, Yue Mah, Mae Ngai, Min Zhou. Thanks: Shimon Adaf, Michael Ashkin, Alan Berliner, Andrea Blum, Ed Bowes, Nancy Bulalacao, Gladys Chang, Marissa Chen, Beatrice Chen, KK Chen, Karin Chien, Andrea Cinel, Maureen Connor, Shingo Francis, Kathy High, Lisa Rose Mar, Maureen McLane, Mary Patierno, Frances Richard, Barbara Scheckle, Marc Silver, Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, Ann Sun, Kimi Takasue, Brian Teare, Jenny Tran, Stewart Wallace, Doreen Wang, Paul Willemsen, Nicole Wolf; Argos Centre for Art & Media, NY Chinatown Senior Citizen Coalition Center, Chiu Kee Ltd., Museum of Chinese in America, Wing On Wo & Co., The Macdowell Colony, Yaddo.

 
 

This work is HD video and must be shown with a 16:9, HD display.
High-Definition Video Guide