zuky:

classicladiesofcolor:

Filmmaker, Esther Eng.

Esther Eng was born on September 24, 1914 in San Francisco, California. She was the first female director to direct Chinese-language films in the United States. The majority of Ms. Eng’s films are lost, unfortunately. 

Every single one of Esther Eng’s movies was about women. She was openly lesbian, which did not affect her film-making career because she came from a Chinese opera background in which this was more or less accepted. In the 1950s, she went into the restaurant business and opened five restaurants in Manhattan. She died of cancer at age 55 in 1970. Some highlights of her film-making career:

• She directed a film in 1937 called “National Heroine” about a Chinese woman fighter pilot who goes to war against Japan and gives her life for the greater good of her country. This was in 1937, folks, and this pilot wasn’t a co-protagonist, she was the heroine.
• Following up on the success of her war movie, Eng totally changed directions and made two Hong Kong films titled “Ten Thousand Lovers” and “Husband and Wife For One Night”. I’m not even sure a woman director in Hollywood today could make movies with those titles.
• Next she made a film called “Women’s World” consisting of an all-female cast, showcasing women’s success in a variety of different professions.
• In 1939, she began distributing her films in Central and South America.
• In 1941, she made “Golden Gate Girl” drawn from her experiences as a Chinese American woman in San Francisco.
• She made two films in 1949 about inter-cultural and inter-racial relationships: “Too Late For Springtime” was about a Chinese girl’s relationship with a Chinese American GI; and “Mad Love Mad Fire” was a film shot in Hawaii about a mixed race woman and a Chinese sailor.

In April 2013, a documentary about Esther Eng’s life named “Golden Gate Silver Light” premiered at the Hong Kong Film Festival.