Amur by MICHELLE SUI

AMUR

written and directed by MICHELLE SUI

My mother, born of the Amur River, comes to me in dreams only. Along the mythic highways of amurica, strangers help a traveling singer across state lines as conversations about queerness, music, migration, and body autonomy take place in the car against a changing South. Amur's queer Asian female protagonist moves through the motels, swimming pools, and television sets of America, through musical numbers and fragmented 8mm film, in an immigrant’s home movie.

Production for Amur has been a labor of love and took place over the course of seven (!!) years through West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and the many places in between. Initial footage was filmed on a vintage Super 8 camera and iPhone. Audio recordings were taken in sanctuary spaces with a commitment to anonymity. It’s incredible that we have gotten this far, when the ability to move freely and safely through space becomes more threatened and exclusionary by the day.

Though we are close to the finish line, our funding will soon run out — we are now in need of your support. I hope you will consider supporting me in completing this unique, beautiful, massive project that has wholly changed my life and perspective as an artist and allowed me to foreground the perspectives of countless extraordinary people across the country. With your support, my team and I will be able to finally share this film with everyone in 2024.

While production of the film is 60% completed, we are now in need of $10,000 to be raised through crowdfunding to pay for the following:

2 Reshoots:

Location Fees

Camera and Lighting Equipment

Cast and Crew Fees

Travel Expenses

Post-Production Fees:

Film Developing and Scanning

Editing

Sound Mixing

Color Grading

Score

Distribution

Any amount helps us towards our goal!

For donations above $1K we are offering the following film credits:

$1K Supporter (Special Thanks)

$10K Co-Producer

$20K Executive Producer

Thank you so much for your consideration and support.

About the Director

MICHELLE SUI is a multidisciplinary artist, musician, actor and filmmaker whose work explores cinematic histories, language, translation, and the performance of femininity. They are interested in reimagining the forms of documentary, narrative storytelling, installation and choreography. Their 2020 debut film Street Angel (SDAFF, Palm Springs ShortFest), a short documentary fever dream on the histories and fictions of Los Angeles Chinatown, has screened across the U.S. and internationally and is currently streaming exclusively on Aeon. Their work has received support from Center for Asian American Media, Sundance, Foundation of Contemporary Arts, Rauschenberg Foundation, California Arts Council, New York Foundation for the Arts, Bang on a Can, Poets and Writers, and the Leslie Scalapino Award for Innovative Women Performance Writers. www.michellesui.com