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An Evening with Quentin Lee

Flow (1998)
May 18, 2013 - 7:30 pm
In-person: 
Barney Cheng, Quentin Lee, Jonathan Roessler.

Watch a profile on Quentin Lee, featuring an interview with the Archive's Shannon Kelley, on our blog

Prolific independent filmmaker and multi-hyphenate Quentin Lee has been a unique presence in both the independent and LGBT film movements of the last two decades. As writer and director of a unique string of films depicting queer Asian lives, the Hong Kong-born Lee, a graduate of UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, has also at times been an actor, editor, cinematographer and producer of varied works—not to mention a successful distributor through his company, Margin Films. His adventurous refiguring of cinema genres and his dismantling of stereotypes, imbue his cinema with an edginess rarely seen in American LGBT fare. This evening, we celebrate Lee's unique role within queer film culture, showcasing a pair of his earliest features.

Outfest members receive two-for-one admission at the Billy Wilder Theater box office!

Flow (Canada/USA, 1998)

Directed by Quentin Lee

For his debut feature, Quentin Lee resourcefully reworked a number of short student films into a feature film format, positing an unseen filmmaker who reviews the films he has made by way of reviewing his evolution in self-understanding. Bridging topics from matricide and vampires to budding romance, Lee's stylish and surprising feature charts a compelling course through queer life and art, viewed from the inside out.

Screenwriter: Quentin Lee. Cast: B.P. Cheng, Radmar Jao, Lela Lee. 

16mm, color and b/w, 80 min.

Watch the trailer below. 

Drift (Canada/USA, 2002)

Directed by Quentin Lee

Twenty-something coffee-puller and hopeful screenwriter Ryan shares a comfortable, if rote, existence with boyfriend Joel. When he meets cute college student Leo, who shares his passion for horror movies, serial killers and such, Ryan pursues a new destiny—then another and another, as the film explores different choices he might make. A heady romantic drama, Drift underlines the enormity of life decisions, when so much of life is still ahead.

Screenwriter: Quentin Lee. Cast: R. T. Lee, Greyson Dayne, Jonathan Roessler. 

35mm, color, 86 min.

Watch the trailer below.