Christine Choy, a pioneering Asian-American documentary filmmaker, died December 7 at age 73.
Choy was one of the first Asian-American women nominated for the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, getting a nod alongside her co-director Renee Tajima-Peña for the documentary “Who Killed Vincent Chin?”
Born in Shanghai to a Korean father and Chinese mother, Choy moved to New York City at 14. There she became involved with the Black Panther Party and local activism. While attending Manhattanville College she joined the Newsreel, later Third World Newsreel, an activist filmmaker collective that produced and distributed films highlighting key social movements of the late 1960s. She directed documentaries on the 1971 Attica prison uprising (“Teach Our Children”), the lives and inhumane conditions of women’s prisons (“Inside Women Inside”), the growing activism and organizing of 1970s New York Chinatown (“From Spikes to Spindles”) and other social issues.
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Choy is best known for the award-winning “Who Killed Vincent Chin?” which tells the story of the murder of Chinese-American autoworker Vincent Chin. The documentary was one of the first films to delve into the impacts of anti-Asian racism and hate crimes in the United States. “Who Killed Vincent Chin?” was inducted into the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry in 2021 for its “cultural, historic or aesthetic importance to preserve the nation’s film heritage.”
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Choy was an outspoken advocate for people of color and social justice filmmaking. She directed, produced or photographed over 85 films, many spotlighting marginalized communities and the impacts of systemic racism. She was a professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and taught around the globe, mentoring filmmakers including Todd Phillips and Raoul Peck.
Choy’s life and ethos is partially documented in the film “The Exiles,” which was directed by two of her NYU students and won the 2022 Sundance Grand Jury Prize. In it, Choy talks about going to the Sundance Film Festival for “Who Killed Vincent Chin?” and challenging actor Robert Redford, the festival’s founder, about the lack of diversity at the festival. “This is not White on white … White people on white snow,” she recounts saying. The next year, Choy was invited to the Sundance jury.
In an event promoting “The Exiles,” Choy remarked on what it means to be a filmmaker: “The spirit of the documentary filmmaker is that you have to take a position — even if it might be jeopardizing your family, your fortune. But you have to take a position. Otherwise, who else is gonna do that?”
