Center for Asian American Media

AFTERBIRTH poetically explores the unpredictable relationship between appearance and identity, challenging notions of cultural essentialism with a call for spiritual transcendence. A “documentary” montage featuring white, black and yellow Chinese characters, some fictional, others real, confront the meaning of language, ritual and skin color to realize a true Asian American identity. Produced in 1983, the cast includes Jack Tchen, now director of New York University’s Asian/Pacific/American Institute; Gopal Sukhu, now chair of the Chinese Language department at Columbia University; Fay Chiang, former director of Basement Workshop, now Program Developer at Project Reach, a youth crisis center in NYC’s Chinatown; experimental media artist Shu Lea Cheang; and the director, Jason Kao Hwang, now a highly-regarded jazz violinist/composer. (see jasonkaohwang.com) AFTERBIRTH premiered at the Museum of Modern Art in 1983.

Part poetry, part documentary, AFTERBIRTH is a superb film. Try programming it with general audiences, especially young adults, who should be stirred by its meticulous rendering of cultural ambivalence and pain.

- Library Journal, 1983

Recognition
Local PBS Broadcast

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