Film Forum

Founded in 2019, Lion Rock Café brings together a group of New Yorkers who have their hearts in Hong Kong.

KWAN Pun-leung, a Hong Kong visual media veteran, is Technical Art graduate of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and a sociology graduate of the Lingnan University. He began his career as a photographer in culture magazines and the independent music scene. In 1994, KWAN was committed by the 1st International Arts Festival Brussels to produce a photo-reportage about Hong Kong and received the Afga 94 Young Photographers Award. He made his motion picture debut in 1997, as director of photography on Stanley Kwan’s HOLD YOU TIGHT. The film was awarded the Afred Bauer Prize at the 48th Berlin International Film Festival. KWAN was also the director of photography on Wong Kar-wai’s IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, and the National Geographic documentary TWO WAY TEA JOURNEY. KWAN also co-directed with Amos Lee BUENOS AIRES ZERO DEGREES: THE MAKING OF WONG KAR-WAI’S HAPPY TOGETHER. In 2005, he won the New York Film Critics Award for Best Cinematography for 2046. In 2010, his directorial work LET THE WIND CARRY ME won the Taipei Film Festival's Best Editing, Best Documentary, and the Million Dollar First Prize. He has served as a judge of the Golden Horse Awards and taught at Golden Horse Film Academy, Taipei Film Academy, Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, and Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Originally trained as an architect, Christine Choy is an Academy Award nominated filmmaker (for WHO KILLED VINCENT CHIN? with Renee Tajima-Pena, 1987) who was instrumental to the founding and formation of Third World Newsreel and NYC-based media organization Asian CineVision.  Christine has produced and directed about seventy works in various forms, receiving over sixty international awards. Among them are numerous fellowships such as the John Simon Guggenheim, the Rockefeller, and the Asian Cultural Council. Her signature films include FROM SPIKES TO SPINDLES (1976), MISSISSIPPI TRIANGLE (1983), and SA-I-GU (1993). In 1997, she won Best Cinematographer at Sundance for MY AMERICA: HONK IF YOU LOVE BUDDHA (1997), directed by Renee Tajima-Pena. She is one of the first Chinese American filmmakers, noted for her work in political and activist documentary film.

Supported by a Humanities New York Action Grant

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