Set in a mining town in the 1880s, THOUSAND PIECES OF GOLD is based on the classic novel by Ruthanne Lum McCunn with a screenplay by award-winning filmmaker Anne Makepeace (TRIBAL JUSTICE). The acclaimed drama tells the real-life story of Lalu (Rosalind Chao), a young Chinese woman whose desperately poor parents sell her into slavery; she is soon trafficked to a nefarious saloonkeeper in Idaho's gold country. Eventually Charlie (Chris Cooper), a different kind of man, wins her in a poker game and slowly gains her trust. Way ahead of its time, the film resonates even more powerfully today in the era of #MeToo. “A genuine triumph … This is classic Western filmmaking: the lucid lyricism of a John Ford, a Budd Boetticher, a George Stevens. But, since Kelly is dealing with different kinds of conflicts, the film always seems to be opening up a new world … Independent in the best sense of the word.” - Michael Wilmington, Los Angeles Times