The Joy Luck Club

The Joy Luck Club also screens without in-person guests on Saturday, April 16.

In Conversation

  • Amy Tan is the author of seven bestselling novels and two memoirs. She served as coproducer and coscreenwriter for the film adaptation of her novel The Joy Luck Club and isthe subject of the recent American Masters documentary Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir.

  • Catherine Ceniza Choy is professor of ethnic studies and associate dean of diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and justice in UC Berkeley’s Division of Computing, Data Science, and Society. She is the author, most recently, of the forthcoming book Asian American Histories of the United States.

featuring

Kieu Chinh, Tsai Chin, France Nuyen, Lisa Lu,

Proof of Vaccination Required

Ticket holders are required to provide proof of vaccination—to the maximum extent for which they are eligible—for entry into the Barbro Osher Theater.

This extraordinary film about four Chinese American women and their immigrant mothers opens when one, June, is invited to join the mahjong club of her “aunties” following her mother’s death. Accepting means more than tickling the tiles; it means assuming the burden of her mother’s story. In filming Amy Tan’s best-selling novel, Wang beautifully captured the book’s intimate sense of history as reverie. Particularly for the second-generation immigrant, history is a mystery located in the family story—not the one told but the ones untold. Listen hard to the sighs of your mothers, look long into the eyes of your aunties, and incredible tales will unfold to explain the fictions of your own life.

Albert Johnson
FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Amy Tan
  • Ronald Bass
Based On
  • the novel by Amy Tan

Cinematographer
  • Amir M. Mokri
Language
  • English
  • Cantonese
  • and Mandarin
  • with English subtitles
Print Info
  • Color
  • DCP
  • 139 mins
Source
  • Swank Motion Pictures