Nightsongs (American Playhouse season 4, episode 13) (1985) (no video link)
Title
Nightsongs (American Playhouse season 4, episode 13) (1985) (no video link)
Subject
Independent films
Vietnamese
URL
No video link found. This content is associated with a videotape in the CCDR Collections audiovisual library originally recorded by Joann W. Kealiinohomoku. No link has yet been found to provide online access and the original videotape has not yet been digitized.
Description
Content Description from San Francisco International Film Festival (http://history.sffs.org/films/film_details.php?id=3481):
Nightsongs is a dramatization of the struggle of a Chinese immigrant family as seen through the eyes of a Chinese/Vietnamese relative during her stay with them in New York City’s Chinatown. The story highlights the characters’ cultural alienation and their difficulties in assimilating into a different economic and cultural environment through a series of poetic diary entries and letters written by the visiting cousin in response to her new experience. The family’s drama unfolds against a background of hard work in Chinatown’s sweatshops; in the problems the young people face coping with school and home life and the lure of the gangs; and through the hardships fought against these forces that persistently seek to undermine the family unity and cultural pride. The director is an expatriate woman filmmaker from Iran.
Ephemera : Text saved from original ephemera. Small clipping from program guide. American Playhouse Nightsongs - Through the haunting poetry of Fae Ng, this is the story of a Vietnamese woman's indomitable will to live. Handwritten notes: Under Cover 20 April, 1985. dragon dance.
Limitations: This page displays video content associated with a videotape in the CCDR Collections audiovisual library recorded by Joann W. Kealiinohomoku. Please be advised that, because this videotape has not yet been digitized for direct access, we cannot guarantee that the video content on this page is an exact match with the content originally recorded by Dr. Kealiinohomoku. We also cannot guarantee function or access for re-hosted video content.
Nightsongs is a dramatization of the struggle of a Chinese immigrant family as seen through the eyes of a Chinese/Vietnamese relative during her stay with them in New York City’s Chinatown. The story highlights the characters’ cultural alienation and their difficulties in assimilating into a different economic and cultural environment through a series of poetic diary entries and letters written by the visiting cousin in response to her new experience. The family’s drama unfolds against a background of hard work in Chinatown’s sweatshops; in the problems the young people face coping with school and home life and the lure of the gangs; and through the hardships fought against these forces that persistently seek to undermine the family unity and cultural pride. The director is an expatriate woman filmmaker from Iran.
Ephemera : Text saved from original ephemera. Small clipping from program guide. American Playhouse Nightsongs - Through the haunting poetry of Fae Ng, this is the story of a Vietnamese woman's indomitable will to live. Handwritten notes: Under Cover 20 April, 1985. dragon dance.
Limitations: This page displays video content associated with a videotape in the CCDR Collections audiovisual library recorded by Joann W. Kealiinohomoku. Please be advised that, because this videotape has not yet been digitized for direct access, we cannot guarantee that the video content on this page is an exact match with the content originally recorded by Dr. Kealiinohomoku. We also cannot guarantee function or access for re-hosted video content.
Original Format
TV broadcast recorded off air by JWK: Betamax tape
Creator
Marva Nabili (director)
Thomas A. Fucci (producer)
Marva Nabili and Fae Ng (screenplay)
Publisher
Public Broadcasting Company (PBS)
Date
1985 April 15
Citation
“Nightsongs (American Playhouse season 4, episode 13) (1985) (no video link),” Cross-Cultural Dance Resources Collections, accessed April 23, 2025, https://ccdrcollections.omeka.net/items/show/330.