In this deeply personal award-winning film that gives an insider view on the contemporary immigrant experience, divorce and family psychology, and the personal filmmaking process, filmmaker Alvin Tsang reflects on his family’s migration from Hong Kong to Los Angeles in the early 1980s - fraught with betrayal from his parents’ divorce, economic strife and communication meltdown between parents and children. This poetic exploration of many unresolved years moves moodily across different channels and modes, bending into labor histories and Hong Kong’s colonial trajectories. 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.
Won Special Jury Prize at San Diego Asian Film Festival
REVIEWS
“REUNIFICATION beautifully documents modern Asian American immigration from the brave, personal perspective of filmmaker Alvin Tsang. It is A MUST-SEE for anyone interested in understanding the struggles, sacrifices, and triumphs of the Asian community…”
-Aurorae Khoo, Writer for “Nurse Jackie” TV series
“As the greatest mass migration since World War II sweeps the planet, REUNIFICATION is a key contribution to the conversation. A bittersweet, masterful, nuanced portrait of a family’s quest for a life filled with more opportunity and the subsequent fall-out. SPARKS EMPATHY AND IMAGINATION — this is what documentary is built for.”
-Jessica Green, Director, Maysles Cinema
“It’s a documentary unlike any I’ve seen – a film very clearly put together to say things through the language of film that the filmmaker is uncomfortable saying any other way… Of all the films I watched this year, REUNIFICATION is the film that’s come closest to feeling like A TRULY DISTINCT ASIAN-AMERICAN [FILM] LANGUAGE.”
-Arthur Chu, SALON
“A UNIVERSAL STORY about family, migration, and generations… Whether you are also a first generation American, have family members who don’t like to talk about the past, or have divorced parents, you’ll find a piece of yourself in Tsang’s journey… Everyone uses the tools that they have to try to make sense of their lives, but it is rare that other people have the opportunity to get such an intimate look at that pursuit.”
-Jaime Pond, Editor of Anglonerd.com
“Tsang skillfully takes his family, as well as his audience, with him on his JOURNEY OF HEALING AND MEANING-MAKING… noteworthy for its artistic use of a trauma narrative process that is imbued with hope.”
-Dr. Mary Boncher, Director of Mental Health Treatment Service, New York Foundling
OFFICIAL WEBSITE:
www.ReunificationTheMovie.com
by Alvin Tsang, 16 minutes, color, stereo.
A fish has been a symbol of fertility since the beginning of humanity. Shot at the Santa Monica Pier, FISH is a free-form documentary observing the act of fishing as a meditative gesture. As life is abundant, through desire, direction, patience, persistence, and being in the moment, its fullness surely ripens.
Statement: I believe that film should act as medicine to keep one connected to life. Fishing is a past time that I have always been fascinated by on a very metaphysical and spiritual level. It demonstrates human's deep connection to nature. I wanted to capture this essence through film.
A fish has been a symbol of fertility since the beginning of humanity. Shot at the Santa Monica Pier, FISH is a free-form documentary observing the act of fishing as a meditative gesture. As life is abundant, through desire, direction, patience, persistence, and being in the moment, its fullnes...
A fish has been a symbol of fertility since the beginning of humanity. Shot at the Santa Monica Pier, FISH is a free-form documentary observing the act of fishing as a meditative gesture. Life is abundant. Through desire, direction, patience, persistence, and being in the moment, its fullness ...
