The first film the M and I saw on our 8 film odessey this weekend was The Grace Lee Project.

Truth be told, I arrived at the theater with my heart racing... I'd gotten the time wrong. Even though every time I had written down the schedule, I had written the start time as 5:00 PM, somehow in my head I had changed it to 5:30. I was just crossing the Capital lawn, heading toward the Monona Terrace, when my phone rang. It was M. The movie started at 5! Needless to say I raced the rest of the way, and fortunately only missed the first minute or so. Thankfully, it was not a sold out show, or I would have been sad.

The Grace Lee Project was started by Korean-American filmmaker Grace Lee. Growing up in Missouri, she was the only Grace Lee that she knew, but as she traveled in adulthood, it seemed that everyone she met seemed to know another Grace Lee. What struck her was the way all of these Grace Lee's where described: quiet, smart, polite, studious.... She started to wonder about her own identity and the perceptions and realities surrounding Asian women. What's in a name?

She started a website and began to seek out and interview some of the many Grace Lee's that contacted her through the site. She conducted a survey and constructed the "statistically average Grace Lee". She met a newscaster, a car dealer, a black power activist, a gay rights activist, a high school student, and many many more.

The documentary was very well put together. It mixed humor and poignancy in an exploration of identity: personal, racial, sexual, social. It made me laugh and it made me think. All in all, it set the festival weekend off to a great start for me, even if I did fumble the start time.