A heartbreaking story about the gulf between dreams and the harsh indifference of reality, Alexia Oldini’s American Dream – shot by and co-written with her Gray Motion Pictures co-founder Steven Gray – follows young Chinese immigrant Mae as her plan to become a New York City Chinatown singer dissolves before her eyes. Expounding on the themes they wanted to address in Mae’s story, Oldini and Gray say:
“The film stages a confrontation with the idea of the “American Dream” and the way narratives of American capitalism have imposed imaginary norms which work to define our collective understanding of the immigrant experience. We throw into question the various modes of objectification popular cinema uses to construct narratives of female identity. Additionally, we frame the monotony of female immigrant labor in order to underline the reality of these experiences and the ways they remain, as if in a blind spot, hidden from view.”
