Review Fix Exclusive Queens World Film Festival Coverage: Alvin Tsang Talks ‘Reunification’

Review Fix chats with filmmaker Alvin Tsang who discusses his film “Reunification,” set for at a run at this year’s summer screening session of the Queens World Film Festival.

For more on the film and the festival, click here.

About Alvin Tsang:

Alvin Tsang is a graduate of University of California, San Diego’s Visual Arts (Media) department where he also began his film career as an editing assistant for THAT’S MY FACE (2001), an award-winning film by Thomas Allen Harris (director, THROUGH A LENS DARKLY) exploring the mythical African “face” found in Brazil, East Africa and the U.S. Tsang edited Josiah Lee’s HANDLING THE A.M. (2006), a short film about the absurdity and falsity of Asian American stereotypes, and Robert E. Holley’s HIV/AIDS awareness film, LOVE ME THROUGH IT (2008). He served as co-producer and assistant editor for Ermena Vinluan’s award-winning documentary, TEA & JUSTICE (2007), about the first female Asian-American NYPD officers on the force. Also co-produced with Vinluan, Tsang shot 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 composer-singer-choreographer-filmmaker Meredith Monk and has created promos for several Michael Kors’s fashion collections. REUNIFICATION (2015) is his first feature.

Review Fix: What was the inspiration for your film?

Alvin Tsang: Since this is a personal narrative documentary about my family’s immigration experience and family breakup, it’s less of “an inspiration” but more of “a motivation.” The motivation behind the film is from my strong need to make a “framed” portraiture of my family history. It is catharsis to unburden the many years of unanswered questions surrounding our move to the U.S. and my parents’ divorce.

Review Fix: What was the most challenging part of making it?

Tsang: I didn’t realize that I was actually making a film about my family’s history until years later into the process. The first few versions of the film were merely ramblings of different aspects of life. Then after a few more versions, I began to realize that the one aspect that stuck out most in all of the cuts was about my family. Although I finally saw this unconscious pattern, but I still doubted myself so deeply that I didn’t believe that this personal story is worth telling. There are not many documentaries of this personal nature in the film world, so I don’t have a strong foundation to draw from. But how very grateful I am to my good friends and mentors! These are writers, filmmakers, therapist, older mentors. They each reassured me in her/his own way that there is real power in sharing my life experience on film. So I’ve learned to believe in it more and more and became more and more single-mindedly involved in the project until, here we are 17 years later. So the most challenging part is believing in, embracing, and utilizing from what’s inside.

Review Fix: How do you want it to be remembered?

Tsang: I want the film to be a testament not only to the reality of migration and divorce, but also to the importance of “inner self work” and that it is as equally important as the “outer work” of activism and social justice. Inner work is what makes social justice truly effective and grounded. After all, how can a person be an effective activist, a fair boss and business person, a peace officer, or a good parent, and be in sync with others when he/she has all these inner demons that cloud and fuel his/her everyday life judgements? You can say that I’m fighting for the sense of “inner justice”, and that I regard it also as a form of social justice.

Review Fix: How does it feel to be a part of the festival?

Tsang: I’m very grateful to be part of the festival and getting to know fellow filmmakers. Kudos to The Catos for embracing the spirit of Queens, which is a place of immigrants and authentic world cultures. It’s so wonderful that the festival is connecting with communities even more by organizing encore screenings at various public parks and venues.

Review Fix: What’s next?

Tsang: I have a lot of footage collected throughout the years, so a lot of sorting-through to do. But one film that I’m currently working on is about space traveling. It has a working title of “Go In Peace.” It advocates traveling in space from Earth’s perspective and in a natural flow that is not forced. It’s a reminder that this is our home and we are deeply rooted in it.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 13819 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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