Happy Chinese New Year ęååč“¢ę°å¹“åæ«ä¹ āØ With Dead Pigs finally coming out, almost exactly 3 years after it premiered at Sundance, and 8 years after a very different pandemic affected pigs throughout Shanghai, I canāt help but reflect on what it means to be both Chinese and American right now. Thereās been a 1900% rise in hate crimes across the United States towards Asian Americans. Iāve seen a video of an 80 year old man getting shoved to the ground. Iāve received racist messages myself. Itās a tough time for all of us but vilifying large swaths of people based on the way they look or because something happened in a place that shares a continental land mass with their ancestral home will never solve our problems. Because the source of our challenges always comes from within. My only hope is that we find empathy - through connecting with others, interrogating ourselves and finding it through art. Weāre all just trying to make sense of this new world, all lonely and scared and missing our loved ones, all trying to stay afloat amidst these giant currents of change, all susceptible to the same doubts and fears and desires for more. Thatās what #deadpigsfilm is about and I hope we can find more empathy and kindness in this lunar new year. (Poster designed by the very talented Caspar Newbolt @v_industries )
