As we begin the month with Filipinx American History Month, Veteran Documentary Corps launches this celebration by commemorating a Filipinx film and scholar. Director, Producer and Writer Celine Parreñas Shimizu disclosed the Filipinx story of Celine Navarro in her courageous documentary, THE CELINE ARCHIVE. Ten years in the making, THE CELINE ARCHIVE is receiving well-deserved attention and acclaim. Veteran Documentary Corps is proud to present this interview with Celine:
My name is Celine Parreñas Shimizu, Professor and Director of the School of Cinema at San Francisco State University. I write books and make movies. I am the Director, Producer and Writer of THE CELINE ARCHIVE which is out this year along with my book THE PROXIMITY OF OTHER SKINS. Please check both out at celineshimizu.com and of course, check out the School of Cinema which I direct at www.cinema.sfsu.edu.
Q: Tell us about the focal subject of your film, Celine Navarro.
Celine Navarro was a 28-year old immigrant mother of 4 buried alive by her Filipinx immigrant community in Northern California in 1932. Her story was globally followed and is largely not known today even as scholars and writers share her story and even as her story was published in the 1990s.
Q: How was the experience of researching, finding and uncovering material of Celine’s life? What was the most exceptional material you found of Celine?
Archives collect material considered important for the future of communities. There are plentiful archives—including family photo albums, library collections of donated materials and microfiche of newspaper articles, and our own memories within our bodies and our personal creative and research work; whether this is poetry, movie making or scholarship. The film THE CELINE ARCHIVE gathers the archives of all of these entities—the Filipino American National Historical Society’s national office and their museum in Stockton, the Bancroft Library, the Bank of Stockton, the Library of Congress and others. Important to mention are the scholarly work of Dawn Bohulano Mabalon, the major historian of Filipinx American history; the esteemed sociologist of immigration Rick Baldoz; important community historians Alex Fabros and Dorothy Cordova; and the work of the amazing poet Jean Vengua. Finally, the history of the family’s memories about their mother, grandmother and great grandmother is preserved in oral history and in photographs that are so well cared for across generations and locations. They each tell different stories about communities, yes, and individuals such as Celine Navarro.
“Her realness as a woman whose descendants are not only numerous but very alive in their engagement with her memory demands an ethical representation of her story.”
Q: Tell us about the challenge of covering within the film the different, unique and distorted stories of Celine’s death?
There are hierarchies within communities regarding whose narrative and whose perspective is privileged in history. The headlines presented Celine Navarro as an adulteress who stole money from her sick husband, violating the moral codes of a new immigrant community who were racially subjected vis a vis lynching, race riots, and the burning of their makeshift homes in Watsonville, Stockton and other communities in the Central Coast of California in the earlier 20th century. Scholars uncovered a different story: she testified against four men who beat up a man protecting a white woman from her abusive husband. Her testimony sent the men to prison, and her act of feminist intervention violated the code of loyalty organizing the community. Her sisters told a different story: she was preyed upon not only by a male leader of her community who wanted her sexually, but her husband encouraged her to submit. These competing narratives enrich our understanding of women in Filipinx American history largely dominated by men. I wanted to center her gendered story within an unavoidably racial narrative. Lastly, her realness as a woman whose descendants are not only numerous but very alive in their engagement with her memory demands an ethical representation of her story. She was a real woman whose story may not be known completely. Whether a mystery or tragedy, the various versions compose the many possibilities of women’s lives previously overlooked that can now be known.
“We are not only subjugated by racism but contend with gender hierarchies within our communities that we must confront and make better.”
Q: What would you want THE CELINE ARCHIVE to represent in the Filipinx Community?
The film is an invitation to honor women’s stories within our community. Filipinx Americans are the largest Asian American ethnic group in California—for the community to know her is to reckon with our past and the continuing subjection of women whether in bodies and desires imposed upon them by others, or the ongoing projects of their self-determination and self-sovereignty. There is unfinished business in the project of empowering women in our community and this story demands for a fuller picture of our history. We are not only subjugated by racism but contend with gender hierarchies within our communities that we must confront and make better.
Q: Share with us additional remarks about the making of the film.
Please see the film now! It took ten years to make and twenty more to simmer and brew. And to see it during Filipinx American History Month this October 2020 is special. We are in our own homes and watching it via virtual film festivals enables its easier viewing. The film will screen across California on October 14-18 at Caamfest.com. There is a conversation with me, the eminent historian Catherine Choy of Berkeley and the legendary poet Jean Vengua after every screening. It will screen internationally at the LA FEMME International Film Festival on October 15-16 with a pre-screening conversation on Thursday, October 15 at 5pm PT with the noted historian Shelley Lee at https://www.cya.live/event/5317. The national premiere will be at the San Diego Asian Film Festival on October 23-31 with a conversation between me and the great curator and scholar Brian Hu. All links and info for these screenings and more are at www.celinearchive.com/festivals.
Screenings
OCTOBER 14-18
Bay Area Premiere: CAAMFest
See a conversation with Director Celine Shimizu, Historian Catherine Choy and Poet Jean Vengua after every screening. Tickets on sale October 5, 2020
On-Demand
OCTOBER 15 @ 6pm – OCTOBER 16 @ 7:45pm PDT
International Premiere: LA Femme International Film Festival
Online | Q&A Event for October 15 at 5pm PDT
OCTOBER 23 – 31
National Premiere: San Diego Asian Film Festival
Online
Future Screenings
Reel Sisters of the Diaspora in NYC (Virtual)
Montreal Independent Film Festival
Chicago Indie Film Awards
New Directors NYC
Seattle True Independent Film Festival
World of Film International Film Festival Glasgow
Hollywood International Diversity Film Festival
Switzerland International Film Festival
Veteran Documentary Corps (Blog) 