ALL THE FILMS IN MY GRANDFATHER’S CLOSET

My grandfather passed away at the age of 90 in February 2022. When my cousins and I entered his bedroom a few days after his death, we questioned what to do with the vast collection of DVDs and VHSs stored below his bed, in his dressers and stashed in secretive corners. A few extra films had been stored in the guest bedroom next door to mitigate the overflow.

The room was warm despite it being winter in New Jersey. The heat might have been from his ghost still present or from the many devices he managed to squeeze into the small room. Wires connected DVD player to TV, TV to VHS player etc. etc.

It was a fire hazard.

 He owned three high-def TVs and an assortment of DVD recorders and remotes.  Armed with all of these devices, he would sit on his swivel chair and be in command of his personal Control Center.  It truly brought him great joy to be surrounded by his great collection of DVDs and VHS tapes. His room felt like a maze where you had to navigate carefully around various wires, stands and shelves.

– EXCERPT FROM HIS OBITUARY AS WRITTEN BY MY AUNTS AND UNCLE.
CONTENTS
    ABOUT

    ALL THE FILMS IN MY GRANDFATHER’S CLOSET is an expected 3-part film series, telling the tale of my grandfather, a Chinese Trinidadian whose life had been defined by an early marriage, resistance to cultural customs and the changing times in Trinidad and Tobago from the 1930s to 2020s via films found in his closet at the time of his death. The films are a range of DVDs, Blu-Rays and VHSs of Hollywood films, personal home videos and other non-US cinema, which will be compiled, edited and extensively manipulated using both digital methods and ‘analogue’ methods.

    This series will archive Chinese history in Trinidad and Tobago, centered on personal stories rather than the wikipedia-ish facts one might find online. The films found in my grandfather’s closet are used because looking at the holistic collection of films gives me, the filmmaker, a full image of my grandfather and the Chinese in Trinidad and Tobago. They tell me perhaps which films screened in Trinidad in the 1950s when he was a young adult, his personal tastes, his connections to his own heritage (via Chinese cinema, knowing he did not speak Chinese) and what interested him as he grew older.

    ALL THE FILMS is about what my grandfather had seen and experienced but also how I view him as his granddaughter. Our relationship is connected via a love of cinema but we did not bond over films; our tastes differed. Making this film allows me to come to terms with my own relationship with him and also allows me to investigate the history of the Chinese Trinidadians in an intimate way.

    Above the TV is a print of the painting New Arima Dial by David Moore. My grandfather’s old shop is featured in this painting. It is said that the young woman’s head poking out of the window is my aunt.
    The small paper cut out of a bird cage above Nefertiti’s bust is a print I had given him from a trip to Hong Kong.
    Only a sliver of his film collection is visible here.
    The three flags of my grandfather: USA, Trinidad and Tobago and Bruce Lee.

    Missing now from this collection is the Bond film No Time to Die (Fukunaga, 2021), which my father took with him the day after the funeral.
    As he picked it up: “All right! My inheritance!”

    NEVILLE CHUNG THROUGHOUT THE YEARS (1930s – 1960s)

    Photographs will likely not be used in the film and are only for context, visual reference and idea generating.

    est. 1940s – Neville, in the center
    est. 1950s – wedding
    est. 1960s – The Chung’s family photograph. Neville in the dark suit.
    THE HISTORY OF THE CHINESE IN TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Trinidadians_and_Tobagonians
    https://www.nalis.gov.tt/Resources/Subject-Guide/Chinese-Arrival
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakka_people

    OTHER ARTICLES

    How American Culture Ate the World: https://newrepublic.com/article/165836/american-culture-ate-world-righteous-smokescreen-globalization-review

    THE FILM ARCHIVE

    Will be updated as films are catalogued.
    For easier viewing, please click here.

    ALL THE FILMS HAS BEEN WORKSHOPPED IN AND SUPPORTED BY THE FOLLOWING RESIDENCIES

    Squeaky Wheel & Film Media Art Center, 2023
    Headlands Center for the Arts, 2023
    MacDowell, 2024