Clan of the Painted Lady

Hakka-Canadian filmmaker Jennifer Chiu’s engrossing feature documentary, Clan of the Painted Lady is a deeply personal film tracing her family’s history, exploring the Hakka — a people, a language, and a culture that have been obscured for far too long. Community Screening co-presented by the Chinese Canadian Museum for Asian Heritage Month. Q & A after the screening with director/producer Jennifer Chiu. Tracing her own lineage back from Canada to China to Kolkata, India, Jennifer Chiu creates an illuminating, bravely personal film. Through her own story, Jennifer explores the weight of parent-child separation, which migration often entails, and the loss and disconnection between generations that must somehow be healed. Thought to hail from the north of China, the Hakka settled in the south of the country, where they were known as the “guest people”. In the face of war, poverty and social marginalization, many of them dispersed to places such as Mauritius, India, Jamaica, and Canada — including BC’s Lower Mainland, where Chiu spent much of her childhood.