Educational Media Reviews Online

This film has three main threads that never coalesce into a complete storyline. The most prominent thread serves as a meditation on grief. Here, the film is at its strongest. The beginning of the film and the ending look at issues of grief. There is the grief of the individual, as highlighted by the director’s own personal loss, which served as a driving force for her desire to make this film. She channels this loss into a desire to share the many facets of Celine Navarro’s life and her horrible death in 1933 with the Navarro family. In this, the film also becomes an examination of inter-generational grief that continues to experience the tragedy of their family member. Here the film captures this sense of loss across time, and how the family continues to be impacted by this loss.

The second thread is about Celine Navarro. The preview for the film presents the mystery of her death as a central component of the film, suggesting that even if the mystery isn’t solved, that many questions surrounding her death will be analyzed. Unfortunately, this does not prove true. We do get an examination of her marriage and some information about her early life. Still, the film becomes quite circumspect surrounding her tragic death. It isn’t until the viewer is 30 minutes into the film before it is completely clear what happened. Even then, the filmmaker doesn’t interrogate many sources. We don’t look at any of the trial information, nor is there a willingness to hold anyone accountable. We learn women and some men from the Filipino fraternal organization are responsible, but the film never moves beyond two basic accounts of why she was killed, without really examining either account.

The problems in how Celine Navarro’s death is discussed ties to the third thread which runs through the film, a desire to tell Filipino American history. The filmmaker states, “I’m hungry for Filipino Women’s American stories.” This suggests a celebration of Filipino women, but she has chosen a story that paints the community in a negative light. The filmmaker is left with a difficult choice. If Celine is a hero, as one person in the film suggests, then there is a need to expose the corruption that may have been part of the fraternal organization and women’s auxiliary of that time. However, the racism and dismissal that Filipino Americans faced from the larger white community had a powerful impact. The fraternal organizations were protective of Filipinos in the face of this wider hostility. This is never successfully navigated, other than to indicate other stories exist.

Overall, even though the filmmaker is passionate about this project, the film has too many flaws for use in many classrooms. There are a few, limited places where the film would work. Perhaps as an examination of intergenerational trauma it would have the most use. The film may also be valuable to the Navarro family and the Stockton Filipino community. Outside those communities though, there is not enough background or clarity to learn about this event or look at the Filipino American experience as a whole.

Awards:
Award of Merit, Documentary Feature, The Impact DOCS Awards; Finalist, Blackbird Film Festival; \Winner, AIFFA; Remi Winner, 53rd Annual Worldfest, Houston International Film Festival; Grand Prize, Culver City Film Festival; Award of Excellence, Documentary Feature, IndieFEST Film Awards; Excellence in Documentary, WRPN Womens International Film Festival; Outstanding Excellence Award for Research and Biography, Docs Without Borders International Film Festival

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