A different cinematic perspective on the Old West

Rosalind Chao stars as Lalu in Nancy Kelly's 1991 film “Thousand Pieces of Gold”.

Nancy Kelly’s first-time feature debut “Thousand Pieces of Gold”, which premiered back in 1991, has made a comeback to virtual independent cinemas. Deconstructing Western, a genre that Nancy Kelly and her filmmaking partner Kenji Yamamoto didn’t like that much, the director played with the expected elements of the genre to tell a different story. Sure, there are gorgeously photographed mountain views, old-time saloons and plenty horseback riding on screen, but underneath it all the film’s also an immigrant story and a tale of a courageous young women asserting her independence. Thousand Pieces of Gold is based on the life of a young Chinese woman who was sold into slavery by her father and brought to the American West after the Civil War— not a typical plot you’d come to expect from a Western. For more details about challenges of making a movie in the ‘80s despite the lack of female directors helming narrative features— go to the Sundance Institute official website.