The Fall of the I-Hotel

The Manilatown Heritage Foundation presents a new restoration of the iconic 1983 documentary, "The Fall of the I-Hotel". This film has been lovingly re-scanned from a pristine 16mm print and digitized at 2K under the supervision of filmmaker Curtis Choy.

After a decade of spirited resistance to the razing of Manilatown, the battle for housing in San Francisco ends in the brutal eviction of the elderly tenants of the International Hotel. "The Fall of the I-Hotel" serves as the witness to the community's fight to survive, and as a tribute to the dignity and strength of the “Manongs”, or elderly tenants of the hotel. Viewed continuously by students of Asian American Studies since its original release in 1983, "The Fall of the I-Hotel" not only documents the struggle to save the I-Hotel, it also provides an overview of Filipino American history. This is not just a story about old men in an old building, but of multiple tragedies: ethnic communities redeveloped out of existence, housing gobbled up by realtors, the shabby treatment of the elderly, and the betrayal of American ideals learned in the Philippines by its American pioneers.

This is a restored and optimized version of the iconic "The Fall of the I-Hotel" documentary by Curtis Choy about a historic event that continues to be important to the San Francisco Bay Area and the Asian Pacific Islander communities. The Manilatown Heritage Foundation, which maintains the legacy of the I-Hotel and Historic Manilatown at San Francisco’s International Hotel Manilatown Center, restored the 16mm print in collaboration with the UCLA Asian American Studies Archive. Restoration, optimization and a 2K digitization of the most pristine 16mm copy of the film was completed by FotoKem so that the best possible format could be preserved and viewed by the public.