Screen Presence 23 is a new event on the Melbourne Chinese Lunar New Year calendar designed to celebrate Chinese Australian stories on the big screen.

Presented by Museum of Chinese Australian History and RMIT Culture, special guests and leading members of the Australian film industry join filmmaker and host Rosie Lourde at The Capitol Theatre for a day of screenings, conversations, and meditations on their experience, cultures and identity, the hurdles still being faced, and the discoveries being made as the Chinese Australian identity continues to evolve.

The program opens with an inaugural Screen Presence In-Conversation, in which Benjamin Law, Wenlei Ma, Corrie Chen, and Adrian Danks will talk about representation in storytelling on screens of all sizes.

Law will also join actor Fiona Choi in introducing Josef von Sternberg’s 1932 romantic drama Shanghai Express (1932), starring Marlene Dietrich and Anna May Wong, which premiered at The Capitol 90 years ago.

Other highlights include filmmakers Clara Law and Eddie Fong presenting their film Floating Life (1996); author and artistic director of Queensland Ballet, Li Cunxin AO, speaking to one of Australia’s preeminent writers, Jan Sardi AO about their adaptation of his memoir Mao’s Last Dancer (2009); and producer Tony Ayres presenting his autobiographical film The Home Song Stories (2007) while speaking on stage with the film’s producer and life-long collaborator, Michael McMahon, about championing underrepresented, diverse emerging filmmakers.