I’ve just brought my first two films into New Day Films for distribution. Having joined New Day in 2018 with CIRCLE UP and served on the co-op’s steering committee since last year, I decided it was time to deepen my engagement with the work.
ONCE REMOVED tells the story of my trip to China to meet my mother’s family after a 50-year separation. I discovered that my intellectual relatives faced persecution, imprisonment, and even murder during China’s convulsive political movements. Interweaving dreams, archival footage, and scenes from her relatives' lives, the film meditates on the complications of historical memory.
In MONKEY DANCE, three Cambodian-American teenagers come of age in a world shadowed by their parents' Khmer Rouge nightmares. Traditional Cambodian dance links them to their parents’ culture, but fast cars, hip consumerism, and new romance pull harder. The three teens gradually come to appreciate their parents’ sacrifices and begin to make good on their parents’ dreams.
Both films are available for educational streaming or DVD purchase through New Day and for individual streaming through many public libraries’ Kanopy accounts.
