What's in a name? Growing up the only Asian American in a Missouri small town, filmmaker Grace Lee thought she was unique. Then she moved to California and discovered that everyone she met knew at least one other Grace Lee and they all ascribed to her the same characteristics - intelligent, nice and quiet. Bothered by dozens of descriptions that just about screamed '"generic Asian girl," Lee decided to track down some Grace Lee's to find out the relation between their name and their identity. This lively, subtle film is an investigation into what makes an identity and also a series of portraits of women who are remarkably different from one another. They range from a California evangelical Christian 22- year-old who impresses the filmmaker as remarkably sure of herself, to a single mother in her forties who rescued her best friend and her children from the abuse she had suffered as a child, to the remarkable 88-year-old Detroit civil rights activist Grace Lee Boggs. (Amy Taubin)

Director: Grace Lee
Producers: Grace Lee, Amy Ferraris

Named one of Filmmaker Magazine's "25 New Faces of Independent Film," Grace Lee received her MFA from UCLA Film School in 2002. Her thesis film, BARRIER DEVICE, starring Sandra Oh, won a 2002 Student Academy Award, a Directors Guild of America Student Award, LA Asian/Pacific Film Festival's Golden Reel Award and Urbanworld's Grand Jury Prize, and was broadcast on the Sundance Channel. She also directed BEST OF THE WURST, a documentary essay about Berlin today.