Chinese-American director Debbie Lum broke the first rule of documentary filmmaking; she became an actor in her own film, Seeking Asian Female, screening at 14 Pews. Lum’s feature debut tackles the incendiary topic of yellow fever — that is, some white men’s obsession with marrying Asian women. Lum spent five years chasing her subjects, Steven Bolstad, a man anxious to have an Asian wife, and Jianhua ”Sandy” Bolstad, the woman he eventually married. Steven, in his sixties, was twice divorced and working as a garage attendant in San Francisco when he began to search for a wife online. He found Sandy. In her thirties, she had grown up on a tea farm in China and was working as an executive secretary in a large city when she met Steven over the Internet.
Lum documents his search, the pair’s online courtship, her arrival in America and their bumpy start as husband and wife. Actually, it was a very bumpy start. Bolstad was expecting a submissive, compliant wife; he got an opinionated, self-reliant, stubborn woman who quickly began to complain about his messy ways, cramped apartment and apparent continued communication with his former ”girlfriends” (some of the hundreds of women he wrote to during his search). At one point, Sandy warns a smiling but oblivious Steven, ”If you deceive me one time, I’ll cut off [one of your fingers]. If you deceive me two times, I’ll cut off a toe. A third time, I’ll dig out your eye.” Unable to understand anything she”s saying, Steven says, laughing, ”I wish I knew what that was…it sounds funny.” As she filmed, Lum found her role changing from neutral observer to translator, friend and eventually marriage counselor. Along the way, Steven, Sandy and Lum had their preconceptions about each other challenged and eventually destroyed. The film made its world premiere at SXSW earlier this year.
Sat., Dec. 29, 7 p.m.; Sun., Dec. 30, 4 p.m., 2012
This article appears in Jun 14-20, 2012.