SF DocFest 2024: Shirley & Memory Palace

Filmmaker in attendance

“A gimmick, menace, curiosity” – those were the “nice” adjectives the men threw at Shirley Muldowney when she showed up to drive in her first drag race. They made it clear they didn’t want her around. But when she beat NHRA stars like Don Garlits, Don Schumacher & Connie Kalitta – NOTHING in drag racing would ever be the same.

“Shirley” is the real story of the inimitable Shirley Muldowney. Salty, sassy, unflappable – Shirley crushed stereotypes and became an integral part of the gritty, golden age of drag racing. Her aggressive approach fueled intense rivalries, passionate fan reaction and sometimes caustic headlines but never derailed her quest to be a champion. She’d be the first woman to earn a license to drive a Top Fuel dragster, first woman to win a professional racing championship, and first DRIVER to win THREE Top Fuel Championships. Shirley’s journey came with great personal costs, but her perseverance proved women could race equally with men. Controversial, inspirational and fiercely honest – there is only one Shirley and luckily she was up to the challenge.

Plays with short: Memory Palace
After graduating from college, a first-gen Chinese-American revisits the places that defined each era of his life: early adolescence in the suburbs, fresh independence in a big city, and his ancestral hometown in China. Using the “method of loci,” or “memory palace technique,” he reflects on the relationship between familiar spaces and the vivid, often-poignant memories they conjure.

Filmmaker Steven Gong tells this story from his own perspective, featuring cinéma vérité appearances from his family and experimental filmmaking techniques to capture the conflicting emotions and lore evoked by these familiar spaces. What happens when we leave home, and what is it like to return? How do we make sense of the in-between? Directed by Steven Gong, 15 minutes.