The Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival returns for its 45th year, showcasing the work of professional artists and creatives from around the globe. Among this year’s featured filmmakers is San Francisco Bay Area artist Christy Chan, presenting her 2025 short film, “Somewhere To Be.”
Set in the 1980s American South, Chan’s short film tells the story of a young girl forced to quickly grow up when tensions boil over during a short car ride.
Born in Virginia, Chan grew up in the rural South. As the child of immigrant parents and as an Asian-American, Chan was keenly aware of Civil War reenactments and the normalized exclusionary narratives that often filled the air of Southern rural communities.
While Chan took note of these narratives, she credits her family for her ability to recognise those beliefs without adopting them as her own. This perspective fuels the conversations she hopes to elicit from her art.
“I credit this to my family,” Chan said. “I was able to look at [exclusionary narratives] through the lens of, ‘Oh, this is what these people believe, but I don’t have to internalize it; I can have my own belief system, and I can critique this.’ So, I’ve always been interested in bringing conversations to the table that are difficult to have.”
Before Chan called herself a professional artist, she had a successful career in advertising, working with clients such as Dove and the National Women’s Soccer League.
While grateful for the stability and creative experiences of her advertising profession, Chan heard the clock ticking away on her “creative fertility,” a term she uses to describe the opportunity for creative prosperity and creation.
“I wanted to see what I could do when I didn’t have any clients, when I didn’t have to convince people to talk about the things I wanted to talk about…So at age 30, I made the switch, and then it happened very slowly,” Chan said. “I switched to having my own art practice, and it was a long period of discovery, of figuring out what I wanted to say and what kind of work I was going to make. It was, actually, very scary.”
Today, Chan’s portfolio spans installations, video, performance and social practice, all of which are used to “question the everyday power structures that uphold white supremacy in the United States,” according to her website.
Through more than 20 years of pursuing art professionally, her primary goal remains to create opportunities for community and to offer a space for dialogue.
“I’m really approaching my work from the point of view of, what do I want to leave behind artistically from this short life that I get to have?” Chan said. “None of us know how long we’re going to be alive, and so my goal as an artist is really to create opportunities for communities. I want to create opportunities for dialogue.”
Chan’s participation in MSPIFF marks her first visit to the Twin Cities. She decided to showcase her work here as a “love letter to immigrant communities,” particularly following Operation Metro Surge — the largest federal immigration enforcement initiative in the nation’s history, which began in the Twin Cities in December 2025.
While many communities may feel they cannot show up fully due to a tense national and regional political climate, Chan hopes her film can provide a necessary space for community, dialogue and connection.
“I really want to offer this film as a love letter to immigrant communities, and it’s not just a thing I say on my press release; that’s how I feel,” Chan said. “I really want immigrant communities to be able to sit in a movie theater and feel like their stories belong, that what they’re going through deserves discussion, that they shouldn’t have to hide. What’s more human than to see each other and feel seen, and in the case of a cinematic experience, see yourself being seen?”
