“BIGGEST CHINESE RESTAURANT” IS BIG HIT AT STF

• by Thom Powers, February 04, 2010

THE BIGGEST CHINESE RESTAURANT IN THE WORLD played to a sold out audience on January 26. The film’s editor Jean Tsien regaled the audience in her Q&A, discussing how she first worked with Chinese director Weijun Chen on the film PLEASE VOTE FOR ME without ever having met him. The tapes from the film were shipped from China to her base in New York. Working without any input, Tsien constructed the film from raw tapes. The same working method was used for BIGGEST CHINESE RESTAURANT IN THE WORLD. In addition to the feature length version, Tsien also cut the material as a series for Sundance Channel and BBC.

Tsien recalled her own family experience running a Chinese restaurant in the Bronx and her monotonous labor as a teenager peeling cold shrimp. Another chore was to shove take-out menus under apartment doors in the neighborhood. The audience included past collaborators including Barbara Kopple, director of SHUT UP & SING and THE HAMPTONS; and Danny Anker, director of SCOTTSBORO: AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY and MUSIC FROM THE INSIDE OUT. All four of those titles were edited by Tsien.

(Above photo courtesy of EJ; below photos courtesy of Jean Tsien)

Barbara Kopple and Maureen Dougherty of Cabin Creek Films show off a photo of the newest STF team member Bez Powers Neihausen.

Editor Jean Tsien with Ngwang Choephel (dir, TIBET IN SONG) and Kim Rogers (production coordinator, THE COVE).

Choephel, Rogers and Robert Chang, an avid fan of Chinese cinema from NYU’s visual anthropology department.

Powers and Danny Ankner.

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