Forever Chinatown

Directed by James Q. Chan

Forever Chinatown is the story of self-taught 81-year-old artist Frank Wong, who spent the past four decades recreating fading memories of the San Francisco Chinatown of his youth by building extraordinarily detailed miniature models.

A meditation on memory, community, and preserving one’s own legacy, Frank’s three-dimensional miniature dioramas become rare portals into a historic neighborhood and a window to the artist’s filtered and romanticized memories and emotional struggles. In his compromise with immortality, Frank announces plans to cremate his exquisite works with him upon his death in order to ‘live inside them forever’ in his afterlife.

This film takes the journey of one individual and maps it onto a rapidly changing urban neighborhood from 1940s to present day.

Philadelphia Chinatown community leaders expected in attendance to lead a group discussion after the film.