NOTHING IN THE WAY OF BEAUTY + SHE MARCHES IN CHINATOWN

NOTHING IN THE WAY OF BEAUTY + SHE MARCHES IN CHINATOWN
Saturday, August 17, 2024 at 12:00 PM
FEATURE DOCUMENTARY | 102 MIN | ENGLISH | USA

General Admission $10 | Student + Children $8

NOTHING IN THE WAY OF BEAUTY
FEATURE DOCUMENTARY | 69 MIN | ENGLISH | USA
Directed by Sue Schardt
Produced by Sue Schardt and Gerard Silva

Beyond the hardscape and monuments, one spark of inspiration is cast across five generations into the rushing creative culture of a city. Sam Fleisher opened a school with the hope that beauty might flourish amidst Philadelphia’s turn-of-the-century industrial waste and congestion. Hundreds of thousands have passed through the hallways by now, that first idea refracting, spreading.

Tina LeCoff is a retired government worker who uses her hourly wages from Target to buy oil paints and floor sized canvas. Chelsea Dalsey is a polymath, with a decade of advanced medical training, a stint in adult entertainment, and thirteen years of recovery from heroin addiction. Phoebe Murer has Asperger’s Syndrome. She lives and works on the top two floors of her mother’s row house with many, beloved pet rats. With them, we learn the ways of art as living and, sometimes, as a way to survive.

"This is a brilliant new work made for our time. Film as medicine." – Cherry Jones, Actress

About the Producer and Director, Sue Schardt

Sue Schardt is a DJ, musician, and filmmaker recognized for her mission-focused leadership and innovation in public broadcasting. For her signature work, Localore: Finding America (2011-2018), she led an expansive national network of local production teams tasked with inventing new forms for making stories “with and for the people.” She began developing Nothing in the Way of Beauty in 2020 while in residence at the Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial in Philadelphia.

Schardt was one of 33 artists featured in One Day at a Time: Manny Farber and Termite Art (2018-19), an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles curated by Helen Molesworth. For this, she produced a continuous, 24x7 live stream originating from her studio in Boston over the course of five months. For the Mystical Theology Network, Schardt created an experiential installation, Into Becoming, turning a dance studio into a space for guests to experience the transformational effect of rest, contemplation, and sound. She’s a long-standing DJ on WMBR-FM, the free-form radio station at MIT. Her program, In the Margin of the Other, airs weekly.

Schardt is a conservatory trained musician, open water swimmer, and brings home the skill she honed in commercial kitchens to cook for people she loves. Her two guiding principles come from her clarinet teacher, Joe Allard, who said “to blow is not to play,” and Chef Laura Brennan, who advised that “water is the magic ingredient.”

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SHE MARCHES IN CHINATOWN
SHORT DOCUMENTARY | 33 MIN | ENGLISH | USA
Directed by Della Chen
Produced by Amy Benson

In 1952, an unlikely group formed in Seattle’s Chinatown. A group of Asian American high school girls wanted to be of service to the community, and approached Ruby Chow, a Chinese American politician and civic activist whose husband was a Cantonese Opera singer who had experience working with elaborate classic Chinese costumes. Ruby was also friends with a Seattle Police officer named Ted Yerabek, who taught the girls American military drills. That’s how the Seattle Chinese Community Girls Drill Team was formed. For 70 years, they have performed at parades all around Washington state, inspiring generations.

This history is shared by Ruby Chow and her daughter Cheryl Chow from footage filmed in 2002. Cheryl took over the drill team in the 80s at the peak of their popularity when the drill team had 100 members. The team is about to celebrate their 70th anniversary at a challenging time: in the wake of the pandemic participation has dropped to 30 members, but the spirit of the drill team lives on!

SHE MARCHES IN CHINATOWN is an inspiring story about belonging, identity, sisterhood, leadership, and a community that has flourished among a diverse group of women with backgrounds that represent a variety of sexual orientations, races, and ages. It is about a group that thrives despite being in a neighborhood targeted by hate and discrimination. As one superfan puts it, “Please don’t go away – Seattle needs you!”

About the Director, Della Chen

Della is a Seattle native and a documentary photographer and filmmaker. She has been telling visual stories for weddings, families, commercial and non-profit and editorial assignments for the last 19 years. She has been involved in multimedia projects about homeless advocacy and aging out of foster care. Since 2018, Della has been a teaching artist for Pablove Shutterbugs, a non-profit organization that teaches the art of photography to kids living with cancer. She also serves on the Board of Directors for Youth in Focus, a free after school program in Seattle amplifying teen voices through photography and arts education. This is her first documentary film project and definitely not her last.