FILM: WHEN HOME IS ELSEWHERE (WIP)

Written & directed by Alvin Tsang  |  Documentary, work-in-progress  |  Color & BW  |  HD

This work-in-progress is a sequel to Tsang’s previous film REUNIFICATION (2015). The focus this time is on Tsang’s father – once a pre-teen orphan, a war refugee, a divorcee of several failed marriages, a traumatized immigrant, now in his mid-70’s – who has not yet “found home.” By understanding one man’s experience from the impact of war and politics through this personal film, Tsang wants to humanize the refugee and immigrant experience, a topic that is more relevant now than ever.

WHEN HOME IS ELSEWHERE (WiP) was supported by grants from New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) and Queens Council on the Arts (QCA), and is sponsored by New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA). Please make a tax-deductible contribution in order to make this meaningful film come to fruition!

FILM: PEOPLE’S LAND (WIP)

Co-directed by Alvin Tsang & Siyan Wong  |  Documentary, work-in-progress  |  Color & BW  |  HD

PEOPLE’S LAND (WiP) explores gentrification and displacement caused by untenable real estate “development,” which is an all too familiar phenomenon that has accelerated throughout the world. This film reflects on the meaning of home through various community stakeholders’ personal experiences; examines the nature of land and the concept of land ownership; gives voice to ordinary people who struggle to stay in their homes in an ever-growing housing shortage; focuses on a community’s fight to protect what remains through a community-led rezoning plan that’s yet to be passed in City Hall.

FILM: REUNIFICATION (2015)

Written & directed by Alvin Tsang  |  Documentary, 85 mins  |  Color & BW  |  HD

Film over 17 years, 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. 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, REUNIFICATION (2015) was screened in the U.S. and internationally in Hong Kong, Berlin and London. Distributed by Facets (US) and Ying E Chi (HK).

Watch Reunification: www.reunificationthemovie.com

Reviews

“REUNIFICATION explores the past with a Proustian sensitivity. Tsang retrieves an old childhood memory of his family… and in it finds a lost world in which everyone was united and safe.”
-Peter Keough, The Boston Globe

“I loved REUNIFICATION – the structure, juxtapositions, poignancy and clear-eyed honesty…[Tsang’s] work is so clear, sensitive and fine.”
– Meredith Monk, Composer, Director & National Medal of Arts Recipient

“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… SPARKS EMPATHY AND IMAGINATION — this is what documentary is built for.”
– Jessica Green, Director, Maysles Documentary Center

“It’s a documentary unlike any I’ve seen… REUNIFICATION is the film that’s come closest to feeling like A TRULY DISTINCT ASIAN-AMERICAN [FILM] LANGUAGE.”
– Arthur Chu, Salon and The Daily Beast

FILM: TEA & JUSTICE (2010)

Directed by Ermena Vinluan  |  Documentary, 55 minutes  |  Color  |  HD

Tsang served as an assistant editor, post-supervisor and co-producer for this award-winning film which chronicles the experiences of three women who joined the New York Police Department during the 1980s—the first Asian women to become members of a force that was largely white and predominantly male.

FILM: É MINHA CARA/THAT’S MY FACE (2003)

Directed by Thomas Allen Harris  |  Documentary, 57 minutes  |  Color & BW  |  Super 8

Tsang was an assistant editor for this Berlinale’s Ecumenical Prize winner that explores the mythical African “face” within the African diaspora.

ART EXHIBITION: LIVES OF THREE CANNERS (2023)

“Lives of Three Canners: New York’s Chinese Elderly Immigrants” presented Siyan Wong’s nine new paintings of today’s elderly Chinese immigrants who collect cans and bottles for redemption. Tsang and Siyan’s collaborative VALUE (2019) was placed below a portrait of CHOI YEE (2017), one of Siyan’s elderly canner subjects, in order to give a glimpse of a canner’s perspective and meditate on the emotional worth of a nickel (the redemption rate of a bottle and can in New York State).

Tsang partnered with artist Siyan Wong to realized several conceptual art installations out of 5,000+ gold-painted soda cans and equipments (carts, gloves, boots, bags, ropes, etc.) provided by the “canners.” Tsang also created, MORNING RITUAL (2019), a single-channel video projection of a group of canners rummaging through garbage bags at dawn. This exhibition sheds light on the people (mainly immigrants, elderly and women) in New York City’s Lower East Side who must collect cans and bottles for a living in this land of plenty.

This month-long exhibition in NYC included meaningful community engagements through artist talks, an insightful presentation about the bottling industry, and a philosophical discussion on the meaning and ethic of work. Several canners attended.