Join us Saturday May 20, at 7pm, when the Thomas Edison Film Festival screens an inspiring evening celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

Theresa Loong, multi-media artist and film director, will lead a conversation including excerpts from her highly acclaimed documentary, “Every Day is a Holiday.” Following an intermission with a sampling of Asian food delicacies, Jane Steuerwald, Thomas Edison Film Festival Director, will screen a selection of award-winning short films from from Macau, South Korea, Taiwan, the US and Zhejiang Province, China. The event is free to the public.

Theresa Loong is an artist and interactive media professional who creates intergenerational storytelling experiences focused on memory, identity, and immigration through the use of film, games and apps. She is an award-winning multimedia artist whose work has been exhibited at the National Gallery of Art, Sala de Exposiciones, Triennale di Milano and Círculo de Bellas Artes. Ms. Loong has produced interactive graphic novel games and social media games for AMC Networks’ “The Walking Dead” and “Breaking Bad” shows.

She received two NEA Arts in Media grants and was an Artist-in-Residence at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island National Monuments. As Chief Operating Officer of Intellitoys, Ms. Loong worked with Grammy award-winning musicians and storytellers to create interactive stories, songs and games for children in Chinese, Spanish, French and English.

Theresa is an honors graduate of Harvard University, where she studied social anthropology. She has an MFA in Integrated Media Arts from Hunter College. Ms. Loong is an Oculus Launch Pad alumna, an IGDA Foundation grant recipient, and a Flaherty fellow. She lectured at Bloomfield College and is an adjunct lecturer at Parsons.

The additional films screening:

Now I’m in the Kitchen – Animation 5 min. by Yana Pan, LA, CA, US.  “When I’m cooking my favorite dish that my mom used to make, my thoughts wander alongside the aroma. Through cooking, I reflect on what it means to be independent and my relationship with my mom.”

Winter’s Passing – Narrative 21 min. by Yang Fei, LA, CA, US, and Zhejiang Province, China. “Winter’s Passing” is a coming-of-age story. Due to the untimely death of a young boy’s mother and his father’s remarriage, the 8-year-old must live with his grandfather who runs a small funereal urn shop. While reluctantly living with his grandfather, spending his days at the shop, and longing to return to his father, the boy meets a woman who wants to buy two identical urns. Through their secret deal, the boy gradually learns the meanings of loss and grief.

Conduit – Animation 5 min. by Lynn Kim, Columbia, MO, US. A running body powers the cycle between states of being. A tribute to Korean musical rituals and the wonder of locomotion, both spiritual and physical.

Heidi Lau’s Spirit Vessels – Documentary 8 min. by Bryan Chang, NY, NY, US. Sculptor Heidi Lau channels personal history, colonial culture, and the spiritual world through her hands to create otherworldly clay works, bridging the opposing worlds of the human and non-human. Set in the Catacombs of Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, we follow the Macau-born artist as she researches traditional Chinese burial objects after her mother’s passing and creates a body of iridescent work that recall funerary vessels and mourning garments. 

About the TEFF: Since 1981, the mission of the Thomas Edison Film Festival (TEFF) has been to promote innovation in the art of the moving image, and the films that are the centerpiece of the festival honor Edison’s vision. Edison’s films did for the eye what his phonograph did for the ear. He made 75, twenty-second-long films in his West Orange studio. His earliest films presented magic shows, plays, vaudeville shows with dancers and strongmen, cowboys, and boxing matches.

TEFF is a socially conscious, modern, fiercely independent traveling showcase reaching out to diverse audiences with provocative, timely, edgy and compelling new works by both accomplished and emerging filmmakers. We celebrate films which address the environment, race and class, immigration, the LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities and issues of social justice. The films we celebrate are artistic, empathetic and engaging works which simultaneously open hearts and minds, teach and entertain.

To learn more about the Thomas Edison Film Festival and the Thomas A. Edison Media Arts Consortium visit www.TEFilmFest.org, Jane Steuerwald, Executive Director, +1 201.856.6565, Jane@TEFilmFestival.org. 

The Consortium is grateful for the generous funding and support from: New Jersey State Council on the Arts, Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University, The Charles Edison Fund – Edison Innovation Foundation, The Hudson County Office of Cultural & Heritage Affairs/Tourism Development, Hoboken Historical Museum, Puffin Foundation, NJ Arts & Culture Renewal Fund, Lowenstein Sandler, LLC, The NBA , WithumSmith+Brown, Big Sky Edit, Sonic Union, APM Music, Monster Remotes, Syracuse University Dept. of Film and Media Arts, Fairleigh Dickinson University School of the Arts, Digital Film – East Brunswick Magnet School, Corporations and private donors.