#206 Flowing with Bao Nguyen
On this week’s episode of the Bruce Lee Podcast, Shannon engages in conversation with Vietnamese American filmmaker Bao Nguyen. She first met Bao when she went to see the directorial debut of his documentary film Live From New York about Saturday Night Live in 2015. Bao was wanting to make a documentary about Bruce Lee way back then and they began talking about that possibility. One thing led to another and that project stalled out over time, as projects do, and Shannon wasn’t sure they would ever work together. But Bao’s passion for the subject matter and his tenacity to find a way to get it done, led to the creation of an ESPN 30 for 30 film called, none other than, Be Water. Bao interviewed Shannon for the project and asked her to read some of her father’s quotes throughout the film, but this film was all his vision. And the end result is beautiful. In this episode Shannon and Bao talk about how they became better friends as the film was taking shape, his be like water journey through the making of the film, why the angle of viewing Bruce Lee’s story through the lens of Asian representation was so meaningful for him, and what it means to stand in solidarity versus allyship. If you get a chance, please watch Be Water, available at ESPN+. There will also be a special drive in screening in San Francisco on Nov 27th, Bruce Lee’s 80th birthday, as well as online, followed by a panel of special guests, including Bao and Shannon. The film is a wonderful piece of Academy Award eligible film making and you may learn something you didn’t know about Bruce Lee! AND this episode airs on Bao’s birthday. So happy birthday, Bao!
Get to know Bao Nguyen
Bao Nguyen is an award-winning Vietnamese American filmmaker whose past work has been seen in the New York Times, HBO, NBC, Vice, ARTE, and PBS, among many others. He was the producer and cinematographer of NUOC 2030, a feature narrative set in near future Vietnam which opened the Panorama section of the 2014 Berlin International Film Festival and was a recipient of the Tribeca Film Institute Sloan Filmmaker Award. LIVE FROM NEW YORK!, celebrating 40 years of Saturday Night Live, would be his feature documentary directorial debut and was selected as the Opening Night film of the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival. His latest directorial effort, BE WATER, a documentary about cultural icon Bruce Lee, world premiered in competition at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was invited to prestigious festivals such as Cannes, SXSW, Telluride, San Francisco, and Hong Kong. It earned widespread critical acclaim and its subsequent TV broadcast premiere on ESPN's 30 for 30 series broke ratings records for the network. He is an alumnus of the Berlinale Talents, PBS/WGBH Producers Academy, and the Firelight Media Doc Lab. He graduated from John F. Kennedy High School in Silver Spring and eventually earned his BA at New York University, and his MFA at the School of Visual Arts.
Link for Be Water Screening in honor of Bruce Lee’s 80th birthday, Nov 27 2020: https://story-spaces.com/events/be-water-6vmgve
Watch ESPN’s 30 for 30 Be Water on ESPN+
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