CFA’s Brian Belak will be in conversation with director/writer/producer Ali Kazimi following the Chicago premiere of his film Random Acts of Legacy at the Chicago International Film Festival. The film unravels the story of a Chinese immigrant family living in Chicago told through the filmmaker’s discovery of a trove of 16mm home movies starting in the 1930s. The post-screening discussion will cover the significance of home movies as unique cultural records and the tactility of them as physical artifacts.
Random Acts of Legacy (Ali Kazimi, 2016, 77 min)
A rare and illuminating glimpse of midcentury American life, this touching documentary introduces us to a unique Chicago family. From the 1930s on, first-generation Chinese immigrant Silas Fung captured his family’s bourgeois life in copious 16mm home movies. The Fungs fervently embraced their adopted home, from fried-chicken picnics to an obsession with the 1933 World’s Fair. The American family, the film implies, fits no single image. (Description from Chicago International Film Festival)