REUNIFICATION | Chinese Independent Film Archive

Alvin TSANG

Release year: 2015

Run time: 86 minutes

Film type: Documentary

When his mother and two siblings first immigrated from Hong Kong to Los Angeles in the early 1980s, six-year-old Alvin was forced to stay behind with his working and consequently absent father. Spending the following three years often alone in an empty apartment, he longed for his family's reunification. However, upon Alvin and his father's arrival to America, that dream was utterly and permanently shattered. REUNIFICATION is AIvin Tsang's poetic and self-reflective exploration of many unresolved years that moves moodily across different channels and modes, bending into labor histories and Hong Kong's colonial trajectories. Alvin 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.

Alvin Tsang is an award-winning filmmaker and artist based in New York City. His films draw from personal experiences to explore themes of migration, family, and identity. His documentaries REUNIFICATION and WHEN HOME IS ELSEWHERE reflect on memory and displacement. He has worked on award-winning projects ranging from policing and race (TEA & JUSTICE), and diaspora (THAT'S MY FACE, won Berlinale Ecumenical Prize). He is currently collaborating with artist Siyan Wong on conceptual art installations and a new film, PAINTING ECOLOGICAL ENGINEERS, spotlighting immigrant elders who survive by collecting recyclables—questioning the meaning of work and dignity in our society. His films are sponsored by New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) and received grants from New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) and Queens Council on the Arts (QCA).

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