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Women in Asia Conference Screening Recap

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Women in Asia Conference at ANU

Our final screening1 while in Australia was held at the Tenth International Women in Asia Conference at The Australian National University in the capital city of Canberra. The theme of this year’s conference was Crisis, Agency, and Change, certainly apt descriptors for the time that Qiu Jin lived at the turn of the last century. I attended a panel on Raden Kartini, Indonesia’s first feminist. Kartini lived and died around the same time as Qiu Jin. Like her Chinese counterpart, she left behind many writings (from her correspondences with European friends) in which she commented on the condition of Indonesia women. Certainly during this timeframe, there was a lot of activity in the women’s movement across the world! We had never heard about Kartini before this conference, much like non-Chinese have never heard about Qiu Jin.

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Deakin University Screening Recap

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Deakin University screening

On Tuesdsay, we took the Metlink Tram to Burwood where one of the campuses of Deakin University is located. Deakin is a relatively new university, having only been established 25 years ago. It has campuses in several locations, including Geelong, the site of the 2010 Worlds Cycling Championship happening this week. Had we more time, it would have been fun to see some of the top racers in the world duke it out — drug-free hopefully — for the rainbow colored jerseys.

In contrast to the RMIT University screening the previous day, we had a lot more staff and outside guests come to this screening. There were several friends of my parents’ friend Bella in attendance. In addition, two of Li Jing’s compatriots from the Beijing Wushu Team were present. We have enjoyed meeting and making connections with the extended family of all those who contributed to the development of Autumn Gem!

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RMIT University Screening Recap

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RMIT University screening of Autumn Gem

On Monday, we had a screening at RMIT University in downtown Melbourne. The city features a wide range of architectural styles, and the RMIT student center was definitely a unique example. One of the buildings looked like it was covered with green slime! Our screening was organized by Professor Lisa French in conjunction with her “Asian Cinemas” class. Lisa’s research interest is in gender and feminist issues in film, so we thought our film would be a good fit. The audience consisted mostly of students, as well as our friend Jen and Melinda O’Connor from 3CR Radio, who had interviewed us a few days ago.

We had our first technical glitch during this screening. The VGA connector down by the stage wouldn’t sync resolutions properly with either my MacBook Pro or iPad. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time to try setting up the computer in the projection booth, so we verbally gave the Keynote presentation and played the movie via the DVD. The mantra that I’ve been saying in previous posts holds, “Always have a backup!”

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Autumn Gem for the iPad Wins The Future of Publishing Award at iPadDevCamp!

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Autumn Gem for the iPad wins the Future of Publishing Award at the inaugural iPadDevCamp!

Autumn Gem for the iPad introduces the incredible story of Modern China’s first feminist, Qiu Jin. Drawing on the innovative and interactive features of the iPad, users can learn about Qiu Jin’s efforts in the Women’s Movement in China and her role in overthrowing the Qing government.

Many thanks to Ivan Torres and Dominic Tham from XBureau in Orange County for their work in developing the application. In true BarCamp tradition, we met randomly on Friday night, hit it off, and developed a complete working and award-winning prototype in two days! With the award — which was sponsored by Promote-A-Book — comes a free iPad, which we’ll be giving to them. We couldn’t have done it without them! Richly deserved, guys!

Here’s a screenshot of the upcoming application, which we will be getting onto iTunes App Store soon!

Autumn Gem for the iPad

World Journal Coverage of Autumn Gem

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We’ve had a number of articles written about Autumn Gem in recent weeks as part of our Spring 2010 marketing. Check out the articles below (in Chinese):

Web Site Refresh

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This week, we updated the look and feel of the Autumn Gem web site. The original site was blog-centric and was appropriate when we were in production and post-production. With the film complete, we’re switching the web site to focus on the finished product. You can learn about the film, attend one of our upcoming screenings, learn how to support the film or buy the DVD.

Don’t worry, we’ll continue to update the News section with recaps from our tour, press mentions, post-production notes and travel tips.

Let us know what you think about the new site!

Oldfields School Screening Recap and Photos

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On the morning of October 15, 2009, we drove north of Baltimore to Oldfields School, Maryland’s oldest girls’ boarding school. The theme for Oldfields this year is, “Women Who Dare,” so it was an ideal fit for our documentary. Thanks to Maria and the rest of the Oldfields staff for having us! And, big kudos go out to the terrific students at Oldfields. They really made us feel welcome at the school. But, enough of me saying that. How about I let the Oldfields students speak (or cheer) for themselves!

Our presentation at the school was a little different than at previous screenings. Because the student body watched the film the day before, we came prepared to speak about our backgrounds and how we got to where we are today. Taking our existing Keynote presentation as a base, we added lots of fun biographical slides on us.

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For instance, when I asked the students if they had an iPhone or iPod, the majority of them raised their hands. Then, I showed them a photo of me back when we got our Apple ][ computer. That must have been back in 1981! I also showed them drawings that I had made back in high school and college. Art and drawing eventually led to my interest in photographer (though it did take a long time for me to have my own camera), which ultimately led to videography and Autumn Gem.

The crowd also got a kick out of seeing our wedding invitations. They asked us question after enthusiastic question about the film, about us, and about our next steps. It was very rewarding to be able to share our film and our lives with them; it’s our hope that our example will help inspire them to work on their own creative endeavors. It’s certainly been an exciting one for the two of us!

Following the screening, we had lunch with Constantine and Maria. They were great hosts at UMBC and Oldfields! Unfortunately, we weren’t able to spend more time with them, as we had to get to our next showing at the University of Maryland in College Park. Two events in one day — a veritable double feature!

Here are photos from the Oldfields School screening.