The Garden Cinema
May 9, 2025
20:30
USA, 2015
Directed by
Alvin Tsang
Running time
85 minutes
Director 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 a communication meltdown between parents and children.
This poetic exploration moves moodily across different channels and modes, bending into labour 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.
Meet the director
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).
Meet the cast and crew
Starring
Alvin Tsang
Gordon Tsang
Mimi Tsang
Andy Tsang
Anne Leung
David Leung
Writer, editor and cinematographer
Alvin Tsang
Composer
Joanna Carselis
