Law Chen
Law Chen is an award winning director from Beijing, China currently based in New York City.
Curator’s note: Law Chen is a hugely talented director with a wealth of award winning experience. However, I personally came across Law’s work via Vimeo, which is no wonder as his films have amassed millions of views and the odd Vimeo Staff Pick to boot. His recent projects are particularly topical, they shine a light on how the current climate is directly effecting everyday people and their livelihoods. Here, Law breaks down the origins of these films and how he is dealing with the pandemic generally as a director. These may well be unprecedented times we’re living in but Law and his work pinpoints a moment in that timeline and ensures that they certainly won’t be forgotten...
I'm Law, a Chinese American director based in NYC. Talking about my journey as a director feels like describing to someone the dream I had last night, it's murky, nonsensical, and I can never remember how I got there. I was born in the US, grew up in China, began making films in the rural outskirts of Beijing, went to Duke University for engineering, became a commercial director at BBDO NY, directed a robot Sci-Fi action movie in China, and now am writing and directing my own feature. I find it difficult to connect the dots because everyone's journey in the creative world is a unique, meandering path. And no matter where you've been, the question always is, where do I go from here? Especially now, while sheltering in place during the pandemic in NYC, there is seemingly nowhere to go.
I never once thought of myself as essential, definitely not compared to the frontline healthcare, food, and delivery workers. I'm just a director and people don't depend on me to survive or look to me for help. But as the truly essential risked their lives every day, their stories were left untold and lost. I felt like it was my responsibility, but not obligation, to tell some of those stories. I've been biking in NYC for the past decade, often alongside delivery workers, and I've always been captured by their experiences. As they risked their health every day delivering food to people's couches, I felt this was the right time to highlight just how essential they are and hear what they have to say. I dusted off my camera, and with masks and gloves on, went out to find them in the wild. After a long and difficult search for people willing to speak to me on the phone, I was finally able to put together Delivered, a film that sheds some light on the overlooked delivery workers that are the backbone of this city.
A slice of life in the time of corona. Thousands of invisible front line workers risk their health every day to bring food to your couch.
Meanwhile, a few of my friends in the restaurant industry were in trouble. 886 was a NYC Chinese restaurant that was forced to shut down during the pandemic and found a way to reopen, raise money, and donate meals to healthcare workers. Vimeo reached out to me about an initiative called Stories in Place and were looking for stories of small businesses coping during this time. 886's journey fit perfectly, so I began documenting their day to day, making bentos and delivering several hundred meals a day to NYC hospitals and healthcare workers. I wanted to make a film that that not only documented how the restaurant owners managed to survive, but also explore their internal struggles as they navigated difficult decisions during the crisis. And after countless visits to NYC hospitals, the epicenter of the epidemic, I made A Head and A Tail.
Shuttered due to the pandemic, 886, a NYC Taiwanese restaurant has turned to delivering bento boxes in order to provide food and resources to those most affected.
I've been conflicted about doing projects during this time. Despite wearing PPE and distancing, is it right that I'm putting myself and possibly others at risk by leaving home and creating? But people seem to appreciate a glimpse into the lives of restaurant and delivery workers during this time. It certainly is only a small slice of a much larger story, but nonetheless a time capsule of this moment that we can look back on. Making these pieces has allowed me to further explore themes that I care about: the untold stories of immigrants, Asian Americans, and pursuers of the American Dream. So where do I go from here? The process of creating itself allows me to keep moving forward. And the films I make are snapshots that allow me to look back at who I was during that time. So I keep making because I never got anywhere standing still.
Law Chen’s newest film ‘Mask of the Zodiac’. Sharing the message to wear a mask.