CENTER STAGE Post-film conversation with Director Stanley Kwan, Co-Presented by CineCina Film Festival

For nearly fifty years, Robb Moss’s films have toggled between the topical and the personal. AFRICA REVISITED, SECRECY, and CONTAINMENT explore racial complexity, government secrecy and nuclear waste, while Riverdogs, The Tourist, THE SAME RIVER TWICE and THE BEND IN THE RIVER explore youthful extravagance, infertility and adoption, and the move from youth to middle age and beyond. His films have premiered at Sundance and Telluride, reviewed in the New York and Los Angeles Times, nominated for an Independent Spirit award. He has taught filmmaking at Harvard University, Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies for the past five decades. Since Barry Wasserman’s youth, he’s always been painfully interested in mortality, but even with his early awareness of the inevitable, Barry has never stopped living. He runs rivers, gets married, has children, becomes Mayor of Placerville, California, runs for office again, and loses. When he retires at 65—as the director of a mental health facility—Barry is toasted by his teary and grateful daughter for leaving his river-life and working a stable job to support her. Even when life deals him the blows of cancer and divorce, he faces them head on, refusing to harden. His openness to the tender vulnerability of life’s unexpected trials makes him a good person to talk to. Today, at 77 years-old, with a new wife, Barry’s driveway has become a regular stop for a man with Alzheimer’s who sometimes needs Barry’s help to find his way home again. Joel Coen is an Academy Award® winning filmmaker. He and his brother Ethan have made 18 films together including NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, FARGO, BLOOD SIMPLE, TRUE GRIT, THE BIG LEBOWSKI, A SERIOUS MAN, INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS, RAISING ARIZONA, THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS, among others. They have won four Academy Awards® for Best Picture, Director, Original, and Adapted Screenplay. Other awards include the National Board of Review, Golden Globes, BAFTA, WGA, and DGA. At Cannes, they have won Best Director three times, the Grand Prix, and the Palme D'Or. Frances McDormand has established a worldwide audience with roles in a wide variety of films, television streaming projects, and theater productions. She is the recipient of 4 Oscars®: for her leading performances in Martin McDonagh’s THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI, Joel and Ethan Coen’s FARGO, and Chloé Zhao’s NOMADLAND (with an additional award as a producer for Best Film). She received 3 additional Oscar® nominations for MISSISSIPPI BURNING, ALMOST FAMOUS, and NORTH COUNTRY. She has also been nominated for 6 BAFTA’s, winning three. In addition to NOMADLAND, with her company Hear/Say Productions, McDormand produced EVERY SECRET THING, Olive Kitteridge (nominated for thirteen Emmys—receiving eight of the awards including Outstanding Limited Series and Lead Actress in a Limited Series), Joel Coen’s THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH, and Sarah Polley’s WOMEN TALKING. Other films include THE FRENCH DISPATCH, MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY, MOONRISE KINGDOM, SHORT CUTS, HIDDEN AGENDA, LONE STAR, PARADISE ROAD, WONDER BOYS, LAUREL CANYON, MADELINE, FRIENDS WITH MONEY, SOMETHING’S GOTTA GIVE, CITY BY THE SEA, PRIMAL FEAR, PALOOKAVILLE, CHATTAHOOCHEE, THIS MUST BE THE PLACE, PROMISED LAND, MADAGASCAR 3: EUROPE'S MOST WANTED, TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON, THE GOOD DINOSAUR, DARKMAN, BEYOND RANGOON, and ISLE OF DOGS. McDormand has appeared in five additional collaborations with the Coen Brothers: HAIL, CAESAR!, BURN AFTER READING, THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE, RAISING ARIZONA, and BLOOD SIMPLE. On stage, she received the Tony Award®, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award for her performance in David Lindsay-Abaire's Good People directed by Daniel Sullivan. Other theatre credits include her Tony-nominated performance as ‘Stella’ in A Streetcar Named Desire; The Country Girl directed by Mike Nichols; Caryl Churchill’s Far Away directed by Stephen Daldry at NY Theatre Workshop; The Sisters Rosenzweig at Lincoln Center; Awake and Sing; and the Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s production of Macbeth. With The Wooster Group, she performed in NYC and internationally in To You, The Birdie!, North Atlantic, and Early Shaker Spirituals. Television and streaming credits include THE GOOD OLD BOYS, directed by Tommy Lee Jones; TALKING WITH..., directed by Kathy Bates; CRAZY IN LOVE, directed by Martha Coolidge; HIDDEN IN AMERICA (Emmy Award nomination, opposite Jeff Bridges), directed by Martin Bell.