Hungry for Culture? Try Chinese

Rose Nan-Ping Chen thinks she has just the thing to satisfy Richmond’s ravenous appetite for culture and foreign flicks: The China-America Festival of Film and Culture.

The capital city is already home to the hugely popular VCU French Film Festival, Arabic Film Festival, International Student Film Festival, Italian Film and Food Festival, and several smaller cultural celebrations. And Chen, creator and director of CAFFC, is ready to serve up some of her heritage as well.

What sets the Chinese film festival apart is that films aren’t the only things on its menu. Art contests and exhibitions, a performance of Chinese songs from the Greater Richmond Children’s Choir and a cultural food tasting add a distinct twist to the festival. Expected guests include renowned filmmakers, artists and scholars.

Chen said she considers the event an opportunity for people to expand their knowledge about Chinese culture in an interactive environment. Hence the several lectures and discussions on China-related issues sprinkled throughout the five-day event that kicks off Wednesday, Oct. 5.

The film festival serves as “an entry point for cross-cultural dialogue,” Chen said.

The group she started, The Rose Group for Cross-Cultural Understanding, is the event’s main sponsor. Founded in 2002, the nonprofit organization aims to promote understanding and good will between United States and China.

With Chinese fluency gaining exponential value in the world of business, Chen pointed out it has become the most studied Asian language in the world, surpassing Japanese.

Its impact is evident at VCU. Here, the Department of Foreign Languages offers Chinese courses, but not Japanese ones.

Americans commonly associate China with business, trade and commerce. But Chen said she wanted to use the festival to show that there’s much more to the burgeoning country.

“I feel that with my bicultural background, I can do something about the China-United States relationship,” she said.

Born in Taiwan, Chen has resided in the U.S. for more than 30 years – 27 of them in Richmond, which she’s dubbed her “adopted hometown.” She was employed at VCU Medical Center and served on several art foundation boards.

Although she recently relocated to Washington, D.C., she said Richmond provided a more suitable setting for CAFFC because of its rich history and its culture-hungry audience. VCU, the University of Richmond and Byrd Theatre will host CAFFC events.

This year marks the centennial anniversary of cinema in China. In May, she took her group to Beijing where she showed the foreign works of American filmmakers in a film festival.

It represented the first half of a bilateral exchange. Through sharing cross-cultural films, The Rose Group aimed to unite college students and audiences living in the Eastern and Western worlds.

With this week’s screenings, the exchange comes full circle and Chen can add another title to her long list of accomplishments-pioneer.

International film festivals across America have included Chinese films. This, however, is the first time an independent film festival has dedicated itself exclusively to China’s culture and cinema, she said, citing information from the U.S. Chinese embassy.

“I am so pleased we are ahead of the curve,” Chen said. It is “very likely” that the festival will return to Richmond next year, she added.

“This is the beginning of a good thing.”