"Saving Chinatown; The Rise of the Dragons" is a new documentary produced, directed, and written by West Island resident Jimmy Chan. This film has been selected to be shown at the fourth annual Zensa Media International film festival. The screening will be at Cinéma Beaubien on November 25th, 2021.
Chan's film was created in hopes of increasing the attention on racism in Montreal's Chinatown as well as other Chinese communities across North America. It features efforts put forth to prevent gentrification pressures and help keep the Chinese community thriving.
"I strive to protect our heritage site, to protect our elders, to protect our Chinatown residents, to protect the merchants, our people, the visitors, our roots, our home."
- Jimmy Chan
During the start of the pandemic, Chinatown had faced an extreme amount of racism and vandalism; that is when Chan came up with the idea to create the Chinatown Security Patrol team.
"I couldn't wait for the police to come to the rescue when it's too late, so I took matters into my own hands created our community watchdog system"
- Jimmy Chan
Chan had seen the hate towards his culture for many years prior to the onset of the pandemic and decided to create this documentary, 3 years ago. Thus, "Saving Chinatown; The Rise of the Dragons" was born. He hopes that this documentary will make a change in helping and protecting the Chinese community.
"I humbly hope this documentary will make a difference to bring better days into our community Chinatown , into our city, to our society, to our country Canada, and to the world"
- Jimmy Chan
Chan has mentioned that the second part of this documentary is to start filming in 2022. Watch part one to support Jimmy Chan who produced this inspiring film with his funding as well as learn more about how to help protect the Chinese Community.
See below for the full documentary trailer.
