Vancouver Historical Society presents Karin Lee's film  “Comrade Dad”

It's
been a great pleasure getting to know film maker Karin Lee during the
Head Tax redress movement.  She is an astute historian and story
teller.  She won a Gemini award for the documentary Made in China – the Story of Adopted Chinese Children in Canada.  Canadian Steel: Chinese Grit, is a historical documentary about the Chinese who helped build the CPR.

Vancouver Historical Society

Thursday, April 26, 2007, 7:30 pm
Comrade Dad: A Father and a Vancouver Bookstore
Speaker: Karin Lee

Vancouver Museum, located at 1100 Chestnut Street at 7.30 pm.�

All meetings are FREE and open to the public and visitors are welcome.

The story of Comrade Dad
is a quintessentially Vancouver story. Presented as a half hour DVD
followed by an engaging talk and discussion, Karin Lee presents the
story of a Chinese-Canadian family's journey through a particular
period in time, the late 60s to the early 80s. It is a story about
conflicted family which, with equal amounts of idealism and
stubbornness, marginalized itself within the greater society of the
time.

Writer/director
Karin Lee reflects on her father Wally Lee and the communist bookstore
that he ran on Vancouver's Skid Row from the mid-1960s until the early
1980s.

This
experimental biography of archival documentary photographs and footage,
explores both the person and the effect that his ideological beliefs
had on his family, set within the political landscapes of Canada and
China at the time of the Cultural Revolution. It is also a little known
story about how a segment of Vancouver's Chinese community embraced
Chinese socialism and how their idealism was affected by a changing
political climate in China. This work is not only about memory and the
filmmaker's relationship with her father, but also about questioning
his place within a divided political community as well as her own
ideals and identity.

Karin
Lee is a Canadian Academy Award (Gemini) winning filmmaker. She has
directed films and videos, both fiction and documentaries about the
effects of global displacement, feminism and the Chinese diaspora in
North America. Her other films include Oyster and Chocolate; the Gemini award winning documentary Made in China – the Story of Adopted Chinese Children in Canada; Canadian Steel: Chinese Grit – a historical documentary about the Chinese who helped build the CPR; Songs of the Phoenix about contemporary feminists in China; and My Sweet Peony a short drama about cultural identity and sexuality.

Vancouver Moving Theatre
in association with urban ink's Fathom Labs
and the Carnegie & Roundhouse Community Centres present

Live Shadow Theatre on a Giant Shadow Screen
Featuring 30 DTES involved musicians, crew and actors!A contemporary fable from the Downtown Eastside
Two families from different social backgrounds encounter humanity's struggle with addiction.
Out of the shadows emerge dreams and memories,
fears, hopes and visions.

APRIL 19 to APRIL 29, 2007
Thursday to Sunday Shows 8pm
Russian Hall, 600 Campbell Avenue
Campbell and Keefer, seven blocks east of Main
Suggested Donation $5 – $20
Reservations Recommended 604-254-6911
www.vancouvermovingtheatre.com

“Stunning, stark and startling all at the same time.”
– Robyn Livingstone, Carnegie Newsletter
“There is more wisdom in this play then in 150 years of research.”
– Author, SFU Professor Emeritus Bruce AlexanderBy Rosemary Georgeson and Savannah Walling
with Sheila Baxter, Wendy Chew, Paul Decarie, Mary Duffy, Melissa Error, Patrick Foley, Leith Harris, Stephen Lytton, Muriel Williams
and contributions by Larry Reed and James Fagan Tait

Savannah Walling Artistic Director
Kim Collier Director
Ya-wen V. Wang Musical Director
Joelysa Pankanea & Ya-wen V. Wang Music
Tamara Unroe w/ Sharon Bayly Design
Adrian Muir T.D. and Lighting Design
Robin Bancroft-Wilson Stage Manager
David Chantler & Larry Reed Shadow Theatre Consultants
Terry Hunter Producer
John Endo Greenaway Graphics

Post Performance Talks Sharon Kravitz, ModeratorApril 19th – Coco Culbertson, Director, Lifeskills CentreApril 20 – Aline LaFlamme, Executive Director, Aboriginal Front DoorApril 21- Gabor Mate, Doctor, newspaper columnist, and authorApril 22 – Dennis Wardman, Doctor, community medicine and addictions specialistApril 26 – Bud Osborn, Poet & community activistApril 27- Susan Boyd, Author of From Witches to Crack Moms: Women, Drug Law and PolicyApril 28- Professor Emeritus Bruce Alexander, Author of Roots of Addiction in a Free Market SocietyApril 29- Donald MacPherson, Vancouver Drug Policy Coordinator