New York on Film: Saving Face (Sold Out)

Please note that this event is sold out and there is no longer a waitlist. If you have signed up for the waitlist, you will be contacted only if space becomes available. 

Join us for a screening of Saving Face (Alice Wu, 2004, 91 min) followed by a Q&A with director Alice Wu!  When 48-year-old widow Hwei-Lan Gao (Joan Chen) informs her less-than understanding father she’s pregnant, he banishes her from Flushing until she remarries. With nowhere else to go, Hwei-Lan moves in with her grown, queer daughter, Manhattan doctor Wil (Michelle Krusiec) who is closeted to her family – and doesn’t want a roommate, especially since she just started seeing Viv (Lynn Chen, originally from Queens). So Wil does what any dutiful child with an expectant, unmarried mother on her hands would: she tries to set Hwei-Lan up with every eligible bachelor in town. Farce, understanding, and acceptance ensue.

This screening is the 2000's installment of our year-long series New York on Film: Decade by Decade, programmed by Jessica Green. The series accompanies the Museum's centennial exhibition, This Is New York: 100 Years of the City in Art and Pop Culture.  

About the speakers:
Alice Wu’s debut feature, SAVING FACE, made its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and was released by Sony Pictures Classics in 2005. Her second film, THE HALF OF IT, won the Founder’s Award at the Tribeca Film Festival before its release on Netflix in 2020. The script was a 2018 selection for the prestigious Black List and garnered a nomination for Best Screenplay at the Independent Spirit Awards. In addition to her feature projects, Alice has been directing episodic television (FLEISHMAN IS IN TROUBLE and INTERIOR CHINATOWN for Hulu), as well as commercials. Her spot for OREO was recognized as one of the top 10 commercials of 2022 by Adweek. Alice has degrees from Stanford in computer science and, prior to filmmaking, worked as software designer at Microsoft.

Jessica Green (moderator and programmer) is an independent film programmer currently programming film, speaker, and performance series for BAM, the Weeksville Heritage Center, and the Museum of the City of New York. Jessica served as the Artistic Director of the Houston Cinema Arts Society from 2019-2022, providing artistic leadership for year-round film programming and the Houston Cinema Arts Festival, Houston’s largest film festival. She was the Cinema Director of the Maysles Documentary Center in Harlem from 2008-2018. Jessica is also a former founder, owner and Editor-In-Chief of the New York based, independent Hip-Hop magazine Stress (1994-2001), as well as the former Executive Editor of BET.com (2000-2005).

New York on Film is the centennial year edition of the Museum's ongoing Moonlight & Movies series.

Important Event Logistics 

• Please contact programs@mcny.org with any questions or ticketing issues.
• All sales are final; refunds not permitted. Exchanges and credit for future programs only. Programs and dates may be subject to change.