Film About NYPD's First Asian Women Cops Wins Two Awards, Including Best US Documentary, at Queens International Film Festival
Ermena Vinluan's Tea & Justice-- a documentary about three petite immigrant Asian women defying stereotypes and helping change the face and soul of the NYPD -- walked off with two awards at the 5th Annual Queens International Film Festival (QIFF). The film received the "Best Domestic Documentary" Award; Producer/Director Vinluan was honored for her "Outstanding Contribution to Filmmaking."
Astoria, NY (PRWEB) November 19, 2007 -- Ermena Vinluan's Tea & Justice -- a documentary about three petite immigrant Asian women defying stereotypes in the NYPD -- walked off with two awards at the 5th Annual Queens International Film Festival (QIFF).
The film received the "Best Domestic Documentary" Award and Producer/Director Vinluan was honored for her "Outstanding Contribution to Filmmaking." Judges included QIFF President Marie Castaldo, Hollywood tough-guy-actor Robert Davi (native son of Queens), veteran film-TV writer Richard Vetere (writer of How to Go on a Date in Queens, starring Jason Alexander, soon to be released), and film director-humanitarian Roberto Monticello (recipient of UNICEF's Dag Hammarskjöld Medal).
Tea & Justice has received kudos from reviewers. The Hollywood Reporter describes the film as "thoughtful and provocative." Prof. E. Habal, Asian Studies Department of San Jose State University (CA) said, "Bold, sensitive, passionate, analytical and iconoclastic."
University of Toledo Law Professor David A Harris, author of Good Cops: The Case for Preventive Policing wrote: "Tea & Justice demonstrates, better than any research study, the critical importance of diversity and gender equity to successful police work that relies less on force and more on communication with citizens and respect for their rights..."
In the film, director Vinluan explores her thoughts about Asian female stereotypes. Intrigued by the image of Asian women in a non-traditional career, she also expresses her mixed feelings about cops while honoring the challenges these women embraced and the changes they accomplished.
The Cops
Agnes Chan, a 20-year-old college student and immigrant daughter of a Chinatown garment factory worker, became NYPD's first Asian female officer in 1980. She was committed to building a bridge between the Asian community and the police. The milestone was memorialized in a photo in the New York Daily News. A native of Hong Kong, many of Chan's colleagues and superiors assumed she was under-qualified and hired merely to fulfill NYPD's minority and women quotas. She surprised them when they learned she scored 98% on her entrance exam.
Christine Leung was born in Hong Kong. Both her parents were garment workers and strict traditionalists who fought her assimilation as an American teenager growing up in Queens. Leung was a student at NYU and a Wall Street secretary before becoming a cop. Early in her career, she was shocked when a middle-age Caucasian woman told her: "I'm paying taxes for a little s___ like you!" Leung worked in narcotics, community affairs and on the elite Major Case Squad focusing on kidnappings. She led sensitivity training classes on race and culture in the NYPD.
Trish Ormsby was born in Japan to a Japanese mother and Irish-American father. After her father's death, her mother remarried a Japanese man and raised the family in a traditional household. Ormsby was a Wall Street secretary but quit in disgust when ordered to serve tea to her male Japanese bosses. She loved Cagney and Lacey, the hit 1980s TV show about NYPD women detectives, and was inspired by her Irish uncle, a cop upstate. Ormsby worked undercover in the subway system and made over 70 felony arrests.
In Tea & Justice, Ormsby, Chan and Leung share stories about their careers, their personal lives, the stereotypes they defied and how they persevered. The documentary includes interviews with ordinary New Yorkers, experts and anti-www.teaandjustice.com [police abuse activists -- some of whom believe that reducing police abuses requires hiring more women officers.
The film's humorous cartoons, lively graphics and original music enhance the three women's stories and its complex look at race, gender and power.
The Q&A session that followed the screen took on the aura of a town hall meeting with many questions asked about women and policing.
In honor of Tea & Justice, the Queens International Film Festival is making a donation to the New York Asian Women's Center's shelters for battered women and their children. Their donation boosts the funds raised by the film's director and three stars, who autographed the film's souvenir posters sold at the festival.
Tea & Justice (54 minutes) won the prestigious Women in Film Foundation-General Motors international grant for 2007. The film's creative team includes Emmy-award winner, Keiko Tsuno (Director of Photography), Sandrine Isambert (picture editor at Witness, the human rights media group formed by legendary pop singer Peter Gabriel), and composer-jazz violinist Jason Hwang.
To book an interview with the film's stars and/or director, contact Leslie Yerman, 212-327-2107. For more info visit, www.teaandjustice.com.
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