Christina Hu Talks About Documentary Filmmaking and her Blacklist Short Film Series Ep 151

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:

I recently interviewed Christina Hu, the Director of the Write in Taiwanese Census Campaign about the Pew Research report on Asian communities which misrepresented the Taiwanese. For months Christina and the Write in Taiwanese Census Campaign team worked with Pew Research to get an official response issued. After several months of communications, Pew reissued the report in question on September 8 with the categories of “Chinese, with Taiwanese,” “Taiwanese,” and “Chinese, except Taiwanese.” When I spoke with Christina in episode 148, she briefly mentioned her documentary filmmaking, so I thought now would be a good time to share an interview that I did with her back in 2018.

In 2018, I spoke with Christina about her documentary filmmaking. Her films have focused on presenting history through personal perspectives. She talked about her first film and her love of history. Christina’s films about Taiwan have covered topics like the blacklist and the historic ruling by Taiwan’s High Court that has paved the way for the legalization of same sex marriage.

Here’s a little preview of what we talked about in the podcast:

• How she got started making documentary films
• Where the term “blacklist” came from
• The Blacklist Workshop (aka Blacklist Studio)
• Her Blacklist Film Series
• What is the blacklist?
• Her first documentary film, Her Journey
• The gap year (in 1999) she spent in Germany in between high school and college
• When she was in third grade in Taiwan and was disciplined at school for saying that her family was from the province of Taiwan instead of Fujian
• How she observed the Tiananmen Square massacre in Taiwan
• The films that she has made about Taiwan
• How her interest in the history of Taiwan has motivated her filmmaking
• The challenge of telling the story of Taiwan through film
• Her documentary film about Taiwanese Canadian Columbus Leo

Related Links:

Christina Hu’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdfvPGT3zqZPP3rfAFAGLdw

Christina’s films:

Her Journey: https://youtu.be/yi1DT2ndy_w

Blacklist – Short Series 1- Graduate Students: https://youtu.be/oGwOYwVG6dE

Blacklist – Short Series 2 – Columbus Leo: https://youtu.be/-mmrQq6hWv0

Blacklist – Short Series 3 – Shadows of 228: https://youtu.be/Lz8vCX1qCvc

1988 WFTA: World Federation of Taiwanese Associations Conference in Taiwan: https://youtu.be/cY2Z2WlSZAc

Taiwan Pride in 2017 – New York Pride Parade and Chi Jia Wei: https://youtu.be/9fNx-gdOhEE

Taiwan Pride in 2018 – Challenges to Marriage Equality: https://youtu.be/HcawPHS5xvs

林義雄母親與女兒命案：Bruce Jacobs 教授回憶錄 (An interview with Bruce Jacobs about the Lin Yi-hsiung family murders on February 28, 1980): https://youtu.be/ihvJwVW8XEc

Lin Yi-hsiung: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lin_Yi-hsiung

The Black List Studio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacklist_Studio

World Federation of Taiwanese Associations: http://taiwaneseamericanhistory.org/blog/world-federation-of-taiwanese-associations/

MacGyver television show: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGyver

The Adventures of Tintin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tintin

A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn: https://amzn.to/3l6QXhF