Christine Choy (born Chai Ming Huei; September 17, 1949 – December 7, 2025) was a Chinese American filmmaker. She was known for co-directing Who Killed Vincent Chin?, a 1988 documentary film based on the killing of Vincent Chin, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. She co-founded Third World Newsreel, a film company focusing on people of color and social justice issues, as well as Asian CineVision, a development and exhibition space for Asian/Asian American filmmakers. As a documentary filmmaker, she produced and directed more than eighty films. She was a professor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. She was the first Asian American feature-length documentary filmmaker with her first film preceding both “the godmother of Asian American cinema” Loni Ding’s first film by ten years and “godfather” Robert A Nakamura’s 1975 film Wataridori: Birds of Passage.

Early life

Life in Asia Choy was born in Shanghai in the People's Republic of China as Chai Ming Huei to a Korean father and a Chinese mother. Shortly after Choy's birth, her father abandoned the family to return to South Korea. As a result, Choy was raised largely by her mother. Growing up, her family struggled greatly financially.

Following the Cultural Revolution, the family fled mainland China via Hong Kong. They moved to South Korea, where Choy was reunited with her father. During this time, Choy developed a strong appreciation for American films released in South Korea. Although she enjoyed the films, Choy became attuned to the prevalence of casual discrimination towards Asian people in American media.

Arrival in America and Education Choy moved to New York City at the age of 14. She was a volunteer for WBAI in high school and described "[o]ne of her duties" as covering the Panther Twenty-One trial at the Tombs. During the trial she earned the trust of the Black Panther Party, and soon afterwards began doing errands for the New York City chapter.

Choy referred to herself as a "Panther Youth", and said she "did the running around for the big shots."

In 1965, Choy was given a scholarship to attend Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart in New York, where she studied architecture. While attending, she made friends with a group of hippies that were a part of Newsreel. At Newsreel, Choy worked as an editor and animation director. Soon thereafter, Choy earned a Directing Certificate at the American Film Institute.

Filmmaking Choy has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Rockefeller Memorial Fellowship, and an Asian Cultural Council Fellowship. Her documentary film Who Killed Vincent Chin? received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1989. In 2021, the film was registered in the National Film Registry.

Career In 1972, Choy co-founded Third World Newsreel together with fellow filmmaker Susan Robeson. During her tenure, Choy directed documentary films on the 1971 Attica prison uprising, the life of women in United States prisons, and the history of social activism in New York City's chinatown, as well as documentaries on the division of the Korean peninsula and Namibia's struggle for independence from South Africa, among others.

In 1974, Choy directed her first feature-length documentary, Teach Our Children. As Choy related to the poverty and the migration issues that people around her faced, she was inspired to make a second documentary, combining the issues she faced in China and South Korea with the struggles she faced in the United States. The finished film, From Spikes to Spindles, was released in 1976, and focused on Chinese migration and Chinese citizens' struggle for equal treatment in America.

In 1975, she co-founded AsianCineVision alongside fellow grassroot media activists Peter Chow, Danny Yung, and Thomas Tam in Tsui Hark’s loft in Manhattan Chinatown. Under the original banner CCTV (Chinese Cable Television), the non-profit focused on training Chinatown locals to tell their own stories through Chinese-language news segments. The shift towards promoting and preserving Asian and Asian American media expressions came in 1978, when they launched the Asian American International Film Festival. AAIFF became the first festival in the country devoted to showcasing works by and about Asian Americans.

Choy was one of the first major female Chinese-American filmmakers. She is frequently painted as a controversial figure. She is considered a political filmmaker and an activist.

One of Choy's most acclaimed films, Who Killed Vincent Chin? (1988), was co-directed with Renee Tajima. The film tells the story of Vincent Jen Chin, a Chinese-American man who was beaten to death with a baseball bat by Ron Ebens and his stepson, Michael Nitz, who held Chin defenseless. They were each sentenced to 3 years probation and a $3,000 fine. Choy struggled in seeking funding for the film due to its high-tension subject matter, shedding light on working-class racism in Detroit at a time when the US auto industry was failing and Japanese cars were gaining popularity. The film was a pioneer in reconfiguring ethnographic filmmaking and won several accolades.

At the 1989 Sundance Film Festival while there to promote her film Who Killed Vincent Chin?, Choy shared lodging with Steven Soderbergh, who was in Park City premiering Sex, Lies, and Videotape. Also at the '89 Festival, she confronted Robert Redford about Sundance's lack of diversity. Who Killed Vincent Chin? was nominated for the Grand Jury documentary award at the Festival; and went on to win a Peabody Award in 1990.

Sa-I-gu (1993), another film that Choy co-directed, was about the effect of the 1992 Los Angeles riots on the Korean American community there, and directly deals with the racial animosity towards Asians in America, but more specifically Asian women.

After decades of directing in the documentary industry, Choy became a professor at Tisch School of Arts in New York City. She has taught a section of the production course "Sight & Sound Documentary" for several years. She also instructed a course called "Directing the Thesis" to third-year students. Choy also has teaching experience at Yale, Cornell, Buffalo State University of New York, and City University in Hong Kong.

In her time teaching she has mentored many filmmakers, with her list of protégés including Todd Phillips, Raoul Peck, and Brett Morgen.

In 2021, Who Killed Vincent Chin? was inducted into the Library of Congress' National Film Registry. It had recently been restored by the Academy Film Archive and The Film Foundation to mark the 40th anniversary of Chin's death. At the time there had been a recent surge in hate crimes against Asian Americans amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Personal life and death In 1979, Choy married fellow filmmaker Allan Siegel. They had one child together, a daughter and a step-son from Allan's previous relationship. Choy later had another son from a different relationship. Choy lived in Manhattan.

Choy died from cancer under hospice care at Calvary hospital in the Bronx, New York, on December 7, 2025.

Awards 1988, Won: Who Killed Vincent Chin? - Best Documentary, Hawaii International Film Festival 1988, Won: Who Killed Vincent Chin? - IDA Award, International Documentary Association 1989, Won: Who Killed Vincent Chin? - Asian Media Award 1989, Nominated: Who Killed Vincent Chin? - Cinematography Award, Sundance Film Festival 1989, Nominated: Who Killed Vincent Chin? - Grand Jury Prize, Documentary Feature, Sundance Film Festival 1989, Nominated: Who Killed Vincent Chin? - Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature 1997, Won: My America...or Honk If You Love Buddha - Cinematography Award, Sundance Film Festival 1998, Won: The Shot Heard 'Round the World, Jury Award, Bangkok Film Festival 2008, Won: "Long Story Short" - Audience Award, Documentary Feature, VC FilmFest - Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival 2008, Won: "Long Story Short" - Honorable Mention, Documentary Feature, VC FilmFest - Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival 2023, Won: Hot Docs' Outstanding Achievement Award

Filmography +YearTitleDirectorProducerCinematographerWriterNotesRef.1972"Teach Our Children" YesYesYesCo-director 1974Generation of a Railroad SpikerYes1975Fresh Seeds in a Big AppleYes1976From Spikes to SpindlesYes1977History of the Chinese Patriot Movement in the U.S.Yes1977North Country Tour Yes1978Inside Women InsideYes1978Loose Pages BoundYes1978A Dream Is What You Wake Up FromYes1980To Love, Honor, and ObeyYes1981White Flower PassingYes1982"Bittersweet Survival" (Short film) YesYes**Executive Producer1982Go BetweenYes1982–83Mississippi TriangleYes1983Fei Teir, Goddess in FlightYes1984Namibia, Independence NowYes1985Monkey King Looks WestYes1986"Permanent Wave" (Short film)Yes1988Shanhai Lil'sYes1988Who Killed Vincent Chin?YesYesNominated - Academy Award for Best Documentary, 19891989Best Hotel on Skid RowYes1989Fortune Cookie: The Myth of the Model MinorityYes1991Homes Apart: KoreaYesYesYes1993"Sa-I-Gu" (Short film)YesYesYes1995A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre LordeYes1997My America... or Honk If You Love BuddhaYes1997Wrongful Death: Hattori vs. PeairsYes1997The Shot Heard Round The WorldYesYesYesYesWinner - Best Documentary, Bangkok International Film Festival1998In the Name of the EmperorYesYes1998"Electric Shadow" (Short film)YesYes2001Ha Ha ShanghaiYes2003Sparrow VillageYes2007No Fifth GradeYes2007Miao Village MedicineYes2008"Long Story Short" (Short film)YesYes2014GhinaYesYesYes2016"Rodney King: Koreatown Reacts" (Short film)YesYes2016"ReOrienting Africa" (Short film)YesYes2016"Legal Smuggling with Christine Choy" (Short film)Yes2019"The Architects of Camellia" (Short film)Yes

Acting performances and documentary appearances +YearTitleRole / SelfNotesRef.1993Sa-I-Gu (Short film)Self1994–2025Asian AmericaSelfTV series2005Marc Forster: Von Davos nach HollywoodSelfTV movie2010CellarHaerialso Executive Producer2013"Ego Death" (Short film)Teacher2016"Legal Smuggling with Christine Choy" (Short film)Self (Voiceover)Directed by Noah & Lewie Kloster; animated film2017"Human Resources" (Short film)Eileen2017Scars of NankingSelfTV movie2022The ExilesSelfDirected by Violet Columbus & Ben Klein (former students at NYU); Winner - Grand Jury Prize, U.S. Documentary competition, 2022 Sundance Film Festival2022"Who Killed Vincent Chin? Revisited" (Short film)Self

Notes

References

External links

Catalog of available works from Third World Newsreel