While being initiated into the jazz loft scene, Mr. Hwang studied film at NYU, creating a poetic documentary AFTERBIRTH, which has been recently re-released as a DVD by the 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

34 minutes. Black and White.(prices match the Center for Asian American media rates)

Read reviews...