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​Keep Saray HOme
[Preceded by Ghost Mountain]

Thursday, October 22, 7:00PM ET
Followed by a Q&A with Brian Redondo (Director, Keep Saray Home), and James Taing (Director, Ghost Mountain); Thao Ho (Organizing and Legal Fellow AARW/GBLS), Jassyran Kim (Keep Saray Home), and Hoa (Keep Saray Home); Moderated by Kevin Lam (AARW)


​Keep Saray Home
Directed by Brian Redondo  
30 mins | Documentary | USA

Far from Mexico and the southern border, in the outskirts of Boston, Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees are facing their own battle against family separation. ICE is detaining and deporting community members on a scale not seen before. Though families live in uncertain fear, refugees have developed a knack for pulling through. They learn to rally together and are doing everything they can to keep their families intact. This portrait of a community shaken examines the on-the-ground impact of a broken immigration system through the eyes of three families facing the deportation of a loved one. They laugh, they cry, and they fight on.

Advisory: Film may contain themes, language or images not suitable for all audiences. Please contact ArtsEmerson Box Office (617-824-8400) for specific details .

Director’s Bio:
Brian Redondo is a documentary filmmaker based in Brooklyn, NY. He is committed to stories from the margins of society, often exploring issues of race, immigration, and how those topics intersect with culture. His most recent short docs, commissioned by PBS’ Art21, “Jes Fan In Flux” (DOC NYC 2019, Vimeo Staff Pick) and “Doreen Garner Sculpts Our Trauma” (Best Documentary, Humboldt International Film Festival 2018) illustrate the ways in which the titular artists use sculpture to unpack problems of race and gender. His first short documentaries “Why We Rise” (Loni Ding Award, CAAMFest 2014) and “The Lookout” (CAAMFest 2017) explore immigration through the perspectives of undocumented youth in NYC and volunteers aiding refugees in Greece, respectively. He is currently working on his next short documentary examining family separation and deportations in Boston’s Southeast Asian community. He is also a senior video editor at The New Yorker magazine.

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Ghost Mountain (Preceded Keep Saray Home)
Directed by James Taing, Virginia Lynch
41 mins | Documentary | USA
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Ghost Mountain is the story of Bunseng Taing, a Cambodian refugee who made his way to Connecticut in 1980 after surviving both the Killing Fields and a second horror never before documented. He was among 45,000 refugees who managed to escape to what they believed was safety in Thailand, only to be forced back over the Cambodian border in an area heavily infested with landmines.

Director's Bio: In his first ever produced film, James Taing is the son of the protagonist Bunseng who originally worked in Finance and Risk Banking. Determined to have his father's story heard, he has interviewed and documented the principal characters for last ten years.

Co-presenters: 
​- AARW
- CMAA
- GBLS