Public lecture and film celebrate diversity, martial and media arts

Bruce Lee, legendary martial arts expert and film producer
Bruce Lee, legendary martial arts expert and film producer

Join us for an evening of thought-provoking storytelling and self-reflection. We will begin with a lecture by Roz Hussin, who will provide insight into the history, philosophy and controversy in the media arts. Then, enjoy "Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey," a documentary on the life of legendary icon Bruce Lee. We will end the evening with a short facilitated Q&A discussion. This event takes place Wednesday, Oct 10, 6-8:30 p.m., at the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center, 313 N. 13th St. It is free and open to the public.

Legendary martial artist Bruce Lee is the subject of this thoughtful documentary by Lee aficionado John Little. Using interviews, behind-the-scenes footage and action sequences from Lee's last (unfinished) film, Game of Death, Little paints a textured, complex portrait of the world's most famous action hero. The documentary features film excerpts from Lee's intended last film. These excerpts never made it to the silver screen because the clips went missing after Lee's death. They were rediscovered in recent years and used in this documentary.

Bruce Lee (1941-1973) was famous for his martial arts prowess and equally renowned among martial arts circles for his controversial philosophy of diversity, inclusion and integration. In a discipline that was, during his time, highly racially segregated, Lee broke all taboos of his era to introduce to mainstream Hollywood a genre of movies that depicted real martial arts skills, minus fake, edited, choreographies. Starring himself, Lee broke the mold of previous Asian Hollywood stereotypes.

But after Lee's untimely sudden death, it took 20 years before Hollywood produced an all-Asian-cast blockbuster movie, “The Joy Luck Club” in 1993. It took yet another 25 years, before “Crazy Rich Asians," a second all-Asian-cast Hollywood mainstream movie was produced.

Roz Hussin is a practitioner and instructor of martial arts. She is also a Third Culture Kid (TCK), having been raised in London, with mixed heritage of post-colonial Malaysian, postwar-adopted Chinese and refugee-immigrant Indonesian ethnicities.

A graduate of Cornell University and an architect by profession, Roz currently works at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln as an instructional design technology specialist.