TRIENNALE DER PHOTOGRAPHY HAMBURG: In Conversation with Michelle Williams Gamaker and Gabe Beckhurst Fiejoo

Conceived as a mode of “fictional allyship” with the marginalized actors of British imperial cinematic history, Michelle Williams Gamaker’s forthcoming film Thieves revisits roles played by the Chinese American actor Anna May Wong and Indian-born American actor Sabu in two twentieth-century fantasy adventure film classics of the same name: The Thief of Bagdad (1924 and 1940).

Thieves sees Williams Gamaker develop a fantasy narrative of solidarity between Wong and Sabu, whose careers were shaped by industry racism and the censorial prohibitions of Code-era Hollywood. Wong’s silent casting in Raoul Walsh’s black-and-white film and Sabu’s sidekick status in the Technicolor version (a multi-directed film, which included British director Michael Powell) challenge the terms of agency and stardom when the only available roles to postcolonial subjects were largely denigrating in form. Focusing on new working dynamics and narrative turns created by its cast, Williams Gamaker opens the desires and realities of the imperial project to a critical reworking of cinematic history.

Thieves is presented here in pre-production and is accompanied by a conversation between Michelle Williams Gamaker and curator Gabe Beckhurst Feijoo.

2022.phototriennale.de/allegories-of-the-visible/contributors/michelle-williams-gamaker/