Dorothy Arzner has long provided the paradigm for subversive feminist film making and the inspiration for a number of key questions concerning the (in)visibility and agency of female filmmakers in 20th century Hollywood. However, as S. Louisa Wei’s documentary Golden Gate Girls (2013) reveals, Arzner’s contemporary Esther Eng, a Chinese-American, openly-lesbian director, producer, and distributor working in Hong Kong, San Francisco, and New York, offers a new paradigm of world feminist film making. Eng represents an intervention in the study of female film pioneers through the questions that her career poses surrounding immigration and queer theory, Chinese feminism, transnational film making, and more. This conference will celebrate Eng’s legacy and the current state of world feminism through keynote talks, panels, screenings, and roundtable discussions.

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