CinemaLit: The Joy Luck Club (1993) – 139 minutes

We're going live again at the Mechanics' Institute screening room. Join us at 6pm for a film followed by a lively discussion.

Proof of vaccination and masks are required onsite events.

July 8 – The Joy Luck Club (1993), 139 minutes, directed by Wayne Wang, starring Tsai Chin, Kieu Chinh, and Lisa Lu

Four sets of mothers and their adult daughters form the ensemble of The Joy Luck Club, an extraordinary drama based on Amy Tan's 1989 bestseller. The mothers are close long-term friends, united by their ritualistic ongoing mahjong games. Each of them grew up in China, immigrated, and raised their daughters in San Francisco. Told as a quartet of flashbacks and flash-forwards, The Joy Luck Club is the stuff of life itself. These eight women interact and reconcile the joys and challenges of families, careers, parenthood, friendships, and the ghosts of childhood in a moving and thematically rich film.

CinemaLit July 2022 – Immigrant Stories

Immigrant stories make for rich cinema. Human relocation, generational conflict, assimilation, and culture shock carry inherent drama, and more than a little bit of comedy. CinemaLit is presenting four films in July that explore the immigrant experience. Our movie characters come from China, Pakistan, Ireland, Syria, and Senegal, but they share the complex pain and joy of leaving their natal homes to find a better, or at least different, life in a far away place. Join us for The Joy Luck Club (1993), My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), Brooklyn (2015), and The Visitor (2007).

Programming in "Civil Rights, Artistic Diversity, Historical Reckoning: Exploring the Film, Literature, and Lives of Marginalized Communities" has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom.

Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Mechanics' Institute, Mechanics' Institute, San Francisco, United States