The recipient of a Special Jury Prize at the San Diego Asian Film Festival last year, Reunification documents the legacy of a family’s immigration to Los Angeles from Hong Kong. This feature-length documentary gives an insider view on the contemporary Asian American immigrant experience, divorce and family psychology. Alvin Tsang turns the camera on his own family, cautiously prodding for answers, but fully acknowledging that the only closure he can get will be from deciding for himself how to move on. Reunification will be screened on Wednesday, March 29 at 6:30 p.m. in Crowell Public Library’s Barth Community Room.
The film presents a personal narrative that not only investigates the financial and emotional struggles of contemporary migration, but also offers deep insight into divorce and its effects on children, parent-child relationships, communication gaps, and the children’s need for a healing narrative “after the storm.” It is an exploration of many unresolved years that moves across different channels and modes, bending into labor histories and Hong Kong’s colonial trajectories. Engaging post-screening discussions have allowed audiences from all backgrounds to share their own personal stories surrounding immigration, divorce and family relationships, mental health, and filmmaking as a way of healing.
Alvin Tsang is a graduate of University of California, San Diego’s Visual Arts department where he also began his career as a film editor. He served as co-producer and post-supervisor for Ermena Vinluan’s award-winning documentary, Tea & Justice, about the first female Asian-American NYPD officers on the force. Tsang filmed and edited a documentary short profiling legendary independent film director John Sayles’s making of his film Amigo (2010) about the Philippine-American War. He serves as a video documentarian for the pioneering artist Meredith Monk and The Guggenheim Museum NYC, and has created promos for several of Michael Kors’s fashion collections. Tsang’s other films include the shorts Fish (2010) and Preservation (2011). Reunification is his first feature.
Come to Crowell Library on Wednesday, March 29 for an enlightening, cinematic experience with Alvin Tsang. Light refreshments will be served.
Crowell Public Library, 1890 Huntington Drive, San Marino, (626) 300-0777, or visit www.CrowellPublicLibrary.org, or their Facebook and Twitter pages.
