She's done being called 'chinetoque' — and she's taking French racism to school.
Journalist Émilie Tran Nguyen invites the viewer to follow her in her quest and discover, at the same time as her, the historical origins of this anti-Asian racism. Told in the first person, alternating archive images, interviews with historians, sociologists and field sequences, this film traces the making of prejudices in the French imagination and pop culture, to twist the neck of stereotypes, deconstruct and act.
Direction
Seamless braid of memoir and archival excavation.
Editing
Pop culture clips weaponized against themselves.
Writing
Tran Nguyen's voiceover: intimate, furious, precise.
Director
Jessica Bagic
Émilie Tran Nguyen
Herself : Interviewer / journalist / Voiceover
Gurvan Kristanadjaja
Himself : Journalist of newspaper Libération
Julie Hamaïde
Herself : Founder of Koï (media)
Isabelle Le
Herself : Communications Director
Cathy Nguyen
Herself : Midwife
Frédéric Chau
Himself : Author / Actor / Comedian / Humorist / Director
Pascal Blanchard
Himself : Historian
Grace Ly
Herself : Journalist / Writer
Daniel Tran
Himself : Honorary President of the AJCF (Association des Jeunes Chinois de France)
Kitty Space
Herself : 1st Asian Drag Queen / Woman transgender = Woman ♀️ : Kiara 🏳️⚧️ (deceased first name : Antoine)
Nhat-Nam Nguyen
Himself : Professor
Sun Lay Tan
Himself : Spokesperson for the "Sécurité pour tous" Committee
Joohee Bourgain
Herself : Professor
Soc Lam
Himself : Lawyer
Franz-Olivier Giesbert
Himself : ex Director of Publication of newspaper Le Point / Author / Editorialist / Journalist / Writer
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The title reclaims 'chinetoque,' a slur derived from 19th-century 'Chinet' — a racist caricature popularized by French colonial postcards depicting Chinese workers as subhuman.
Tran Nguyen deliberately includes her own cringe-worthy childhood photos and diary entries, modeling the vulnerability required to examine one's own complicity in internalized racism.
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