Celebrating IWD with film. This is the first of our month series of film and documentary celebrating women in film.

This weekend, our choice of film was The Joy Club. A novel based film by Amy Tan that tells the story of four women from mainland China who have immigrated to America and the city of San Francisco by overcoming the turmoil and heart ache of a war torn 1940’s China.

Immigrating to America, the women hope to leave a horrible past behind and fulfil their dreams and hopes for themselves and their daughters. In the process they must also teach their daughters the importance of remaining themselves and their genuine self identity and not allowing their desires to fit into American culture change them, but remain themselves as well as maintaining their culture and traditions.

It is a story that represents the traditional values of Chinese culture and it’s adaptation into western culture and a mother’s love which can seemingly be too over whelming at times as the daughters are made to feel as if they must be perfect at all times in order to please their mothers.

The film probes the full gamut of female experiences speaking forcefully about generational differences, cross-cultural confusions, the difference between expectations and hope, and the pain caused by misunderstanding and lack of direct communication.

While this film does touches on a number of themes, one of the most important and touching aspects of what we enjoyed about this film is in how the story telling highlights the importance of maintaining a sense of heritage and culture — even after you move immigrating to a completely new environment.

Discover more about our upcoming events & screenings through this coming month here.

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