Chinese Cinemas In and Outside China: Pioneer Woman Director in Media Reportage

The stories of pioneering women are often lost in time because historians find it difficult to “place” them within the larger historical context. This paper focuses on the case of Esther Eng (1914-70), a San Francisco born woman who made ten Chinese films in Hong Kong and America. Eng was the first woman director of Southern China and the only one during her most active period as a director (1935-1949). She crossed boundaries of gender, language, and culture by making Cantonese language films for Chinese audiences during and after WWII, and was in fact the only woman directing feature length films in America after Dorothy Arzner’s retirement in 1943 and before Ida Lupino began directing in 1949. When changing times made it no longer possible for her to continue making films, she turned her powers of innovation towards establishing a tradition of Chinese fine dining in New York City. The traces of her restaurants have long been integrated into an iconic part of the cityscape and period she once occupied. Drawing on the marks she left in both the Chinese and English press, this paper aims to examine how Esther Eng achieved what seemed to be impossible at her times as a lesbian director and how her legend got lost and was then rediscovered. The presentation of the paper will be accompanied by photographs from Eng’s private collection that fell into the hands of the author.