It is my honor to invite you to join us for our latest film-screening event titled “Fashion’s Circuit: Personal Stories From a Global Industry,” on Friday, March 23rd at NYU’s 19 University Place Auditorium (19 University Place, Room 102). The event is co-sponsored by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York (TECO-NY) and New York University’s Asian/Pacific/American (APA) Institute and will feature a screening of two Taiwanese documentary films by celebrated director Ho Chao-ti, My Fancy High Heels and El Salvador Journal from 6:30-8:30pm. There will be a pre-screening reception at 6:00pm, and a post-screening conversation with director Ho and renowned scholar Lisa Lowe from 8:30-9:00pm.
As a shrewd observer of social issues, Ho Chao-ti’s documentary work shows her great concern for social justice and the human condition. The two films both center on the fashion industry and address the impact of globalization and the rise of the multinational corporation on international labor conditions and the environment. My Fancy High Heels follows the production and distribution of a pair of designer high-heeled shoes, juxtaposing the lives of the farmers who tend the cattle raised for leather, the factory worker on the border of China and Russia, the Taiwanese manager of the contract manufacturing firm, and the consumer of luxury goods in New York City. The film was chosen by MoMA’s International Festival of Non-fiction Film in 2010 and has been nominated for the best documentary category for the 2012 New York Festivals International Television and Film Awards. El Salvador Journal outlines the amazing story of Just Garments, a formerly Taiwanese-owned clothing manufacturing factory in El Salvador which was closed unexpectedly and successfully re-opened and managed through union activism. A film crew accompanies Taiwanese professor Chen Hsin-Hsing, an advocate for the workers, as he travels to El Salvador and interacts with the people involved.
After the films, the director of El Salvador Journal, Ho Chao-ti, and Professor of Comparative Literature at UC San Diego, Lisa Lowe, will lead a conversation about the films and pertinent issues covered in the works. Attached, please find their respective Bios.
If you are able to attend the reception and screening, please RSVP to Kristine Lin at klin@taipei.org or by phone at 212-317-7358 by March 16, 2012. For more information, please visit the APA Institute’s website at www.nyu-apastudies.org/new/event.php?type=1_event&event_id=354.
We hope you can join us for this exciting film event!
