Director
A Field Guide to Coastal Fortifications is an essay film charting the technological evolution of military bunkers built within the San Francisco Bay’s eroding coast. The film observes a dynamic geological relationship between the literal structures of colonial power, and the land itself. As symbols of military might, the bunkers were tasked with protecting the coast from ‘perceived threats.’ Constructed, reconstructed and updated over time, these structures stood and waited for the enemy that never came. Against the backdrop of a changing landscape and its mythology, the film looks at the evolution of military technologies of seeing.
Additional Camera
On June 3, 1973, a man was murdered in a busy intersection of San Francisco’s Chinatown as part of an ongoing gang war. Chol Soo Lee, a 20-year-old Korean immigrant who had previous run-ins with the law, was arrested and convicted based on flimsy evidence and the eyewitness accounts of white tourists who couldn’t distinguish between Asian features. Sentenced to life in prison, Chol Soo Lee would spend years fighting to survive behind bars before journalist K.W. Lee took an interest in his case. The intrepid reporter’s investigation would galvanize a first-of-its-kind pan-Asian American grassroots movement to fight for Chol Soo Lee’s freedom, ultimately inspiring a new generation of social justice activists.
