"That would take days to answer," Filmmaker Anna Chi told me in response to the question of what brought her to America from China.

"It's a complicated question because it involves a combination of personal and political issues." Anna continued. "I was a political child star in China during the cultural revolution. My dad had been sent to an education camp and I wrote him a letter telling him to listen to Chairman Mao and the Party."

The government in China got the letter and popularized it making Anna a symbol of the ruling Party. Anna's name was Shaoai then which means "Forever Spring." Following her exultation by the Party, the government renamed her Yong Hong or "Forever Red."

"As I grew older as Forever Red, the first thing I did was to go to the countryside to become a farmer first as the Party wanted from all the city students after their high school. It was also some sort of reeducation to make us strong for the Party and the people. I was a peasant for three years before the party felt that I was good enough to move onto my next assignment which is the university. I wasn't encouraged to major in literature, that's what they wanted me to study. There's no other choices. The publishing house job was just a plan when the Party sent me to the university but never realized because the death of Mao. So they gave me a job as a film editor. I really wanted to be a writer."

"But they gave me a job as a film editor without any training or anything. My degree was in Literature." Anna told me.

You see, even though she had been educated she knew nothing but the Party in China and still bore allegiance to it.

"Because of the literature world that opened in front of me, I changed when I reached age 18. Then I believed what my heart told me. That is when I changed my name back to Shaoai or Forever Spring. I started falling in love, before I was very plain but I started to become a woman. After I started working in the film studio, I fell in love with a DP who even though had separated from his wife was still married. This was a problem naturally. As a Party member, they could direct my actions. I endured a great amount of persecution for like two years."

Anna was made by the Party in China to write out detailed confessions about her "evils."

"Not only I had hard time to find a new job, but also I was considered lucky that anyone would want to marry me after my "evil" act."

The Party arranged a marriage and she agreed to the union remaining married until 1988 when she divorced. She had a son with her husband. After her divorce, she had trouble finding work because she was a marked woman a "Poxie," as she referred to it, which is like a used shoe or something not worth keeping. Life in China was very difficult and a friend encouraged her to come to America.

"When I came to America, I didn't speak the language. My ex-husband helped me, and I came here to go to UCLA. Of course, I could not speak English so before I could enter the university, I had to learn to speak the language." Anna told me.

"I went to an adult school to learn English, and I was so infuriated with learning English. It was sad because I associated my problems with the length of my hair-it was down below my butt, so very long. So I cut it off with sizzors, I felt so stupid, it was such a crazy idea. Here I was in America and I cut my hair off to learn English."

I asked her how her name became Anna.

"That is kind of funny really because when I was in adult school I needed a name that was easier to say in America. It was early in the adult school and I did not know any English really so I thought about that Russian novel ANNA KARENINA and the fact that in Chinese it might be pronounced the same 'An-Na.' So, I was reincarnated in America as Anna Chi."

So why filmmaking, I asked her.

"In China, I did not want to be in film but I became a film editor. One time, Kodak had a one week short course for editing. They gave us a reel of film, about 5 minutes and we were asked to reedit it according to our understanding. This taught us that there are many ways to tell a story. At that time, I realized that I wanted to be a filmmaker. That five minutes was taken from NORTH BY NORTHWEST (a film unknown to Anna while in China). I always wanted to be a writer and never knew filmmaking enough to know how to tell a story through a movie. That idea changed when Kodak came." Anna discovered Hitchcock while in school in America.

Anna's first movie is BLINDNESS (although she worked on JOY LUCK CLUB and Oliver Stone's NIXON) which opened in limited theatrical release last month.

"BLINDNESS was not my dream project but it is a product of what I was doing in this country at that time. In 1997, I had gotten married to Douglas Smith and he had won an Oscar for INDEPENDENCE DAY. I felt comfort with the language and felt like I could go for it. Why wait for the phone to ring? I thought that I would provide an opportunity for myself. I thought what can I do on my own? I looked around and knew that I had a great house and with a limited cast, I could make a feature."

"I wrote the script in less than a month. Part of the story came from an famous old Chinese play called THE WILDERNESS. It had a blind character looking for direction. I watched Hitchcock's ROPE for inspiration, it's just brilliant. Jared Rappaport did the shooting script."

"I was lucky because one person put up the money initially $100,000.00, then later another $30,000.00. The investor saw the passion that I had for the making a film."

Anna was lucky enough to work with some top Asian American acting talent in BLINDNESS particularly veteran actress Lisa Lu.

"I had worked with Lisa on JOY LUCK CLUB and we became close." Anna had confidence in Ms. Lu's ability to convey the fear and hopelessness of her character in BLINDNESS; she plays the blind mother who has squirreled away in her room weapons that come in handy when confronted with an armed intruder but are specifically in her possession for the purpose of perhaps taking her own life.

"Mrs. Hong [played by Lu] lives in the dark [due to her physical blindness] which is a very scary thing. Her son [an eye doctor] cannot retore her sight and her daughter-in-law cannot give her a grandchild." Anna told me.

"Patrick [played by Joe Lando in BLINDNESS] is blind as well. He is blind to the deceit that has caused him to go to prison." Anna went on to say that he is a prisoner of his own beliefs which are a product of the deceit and serves as a major conflict explored in the film.

"Patrick just wants to see them and confront them [his Asian family, he is American and has been convicted of murdering his natural parents]." Patrick has spent 10 years in prison thinking that his Asian god-father was responsible for the crime he was convicted of doing.

"BLINDNESS is a short feature film we cut out about 15 minutes that did not work. The script has much more. Patrick had flashbacks and there was a scene with the police involving some gunplay."

Anna's next project involves the happenings at a Chinese funeral in America. Lisa Lu will hopefully be cast in that film as well which revolves around a rich Chinese American family, their relationships and how they deal with death. It will go into production soon.

"Once I was here in America, I rented 2 movies [Anna was partial to Hitchcock] a day which helped me learn English but also helped me learn how to become a filmmaker."

BLINDNESS while bearly a feature length film in Anna's words does show that Anna can tell a story one that is complex and interesting. Imagine being given a reel of film 5 minutes in length in China and asked to rearrange it to tell a story. Imagine that you have no idea what the reel of film is from. There are many ways to tell a story and filmmaker Anna Chi has many other stories to tell.

Jonathan W. Hickman