Trailblazer Christine Choy on ‘Our Responsibility to Document History While It Is Unfolding’

variety.com:

Jennie Punter Documentary trailblazer Christine Choy kicked off Hot Docs’ Industry LIVE conference with a captivating fast-forward through the plot points and ideologies of her experimental, activist filmmaking, including her recent turn in front of the camera in Violet Columbus and Ben Klein’s doc-feature debut “The Exiles,” winner of this year’s U.S.

Grand Jury Prize in documentary at the Sundance Film Festival.The film has its international premiere at Hot Docs on Thursday, with a followup cinema screening on Sunday.A beloved, outspoken film professor for many years, Choy has also worked steadily behind the camera since the early 1970s, and was a founding director with New York-based Third World Newsreel, one of the oldest alternative media arts organizations in the U.S., and through which she made the seminal “From Spikes to Spindles” (1976).

Her current projects include a doc about the WWII U.S. air squadron the Flying Tigers and another exploring Tupac Shakur’s influence on Asian pop music: “I used to babysit him—can you believe it?,” she laughed.