Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir
Available on Netflix
KPJR Films’ Feature Documentary Profiles
Life of Respected Literary Voice in James
Redford’s Final Film
Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir, KPJR Films fifth documentary feature, is now available on Netflix. The film premiered at The Sundance Film Festival in February 2021 to critical acclaim and went on to be broadcast and streamed on American Masters/PBS in early May. In addition, the film was selected to screen at festivals including: Doclands; CAAMFest; The Cleveland Film Festival; The Seattle Film Festival and Women + Film Denver.
Redford presented an intimate look at Tan’s fascinating life through the use of archival imagery, home movies, personal photographs and beautiful animation by Xaviera Lopez edited to music composed by award-winning film composter Kathryn Bostic. The film also features interviews with fellow writers Kevin Kwan, Isabel Allende, Dave Barry and Ronal Bass along with actors from “The Joy Luck Club” including Lisa Lu, Rosalind Chao, Tamlyn Tomita and Kieu Chinh along with friends and family. Tan shared openly the trauma of her childhood with Redford as well as the tools that have aided her healing and building a life of joy and resiliency as she established herself as one of America’s most respected literary voices. Born to Chinese immigrant parents, it would be decades before the author would fully understand the inherited trauma rooted in the legacies of women who survived the Chinese tradition of concubinage. The success of her debut novel, “The Joy Luck Club“ (1989) propelled Amy Tan to critical success, spending over 40 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list. Following her literary success, came a 1993 blockbuster film adaption that was selected for the National Film Registry in 2020, as well as bestselling novels, librettos, short stories and memoirs.
Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir is a production of KPJR Films in association with American Masters.
Directed by James Redford Produced by Karen Pritzker
Key Credits include:
Directed by: James Redford
Produced by: Karen Pritzker
Producer: Cassandra Jabola
Editor: Jeff Boyette
Line Producer: Suzanne Debrunner
Executive Producer: Michael Kantor
Director of Photography: John Behrens
Story Consultant: Jean Tsien
Music by: Kathryn Bostic
Sound Design by: Bob Edwards
Animation by: Xaviera López
Assistant Editor: Ilana Rappaport
Remembering James Redford
The film was also noted because of the collaboration between Amy Tan and James Redford which allowed Tan to open up to the documentary filmmaker and freely share traumatic details of her past because, she says, she trusted him.
“One of the things that was very key in working with Jamie, and his asking me the questions, I perceived very early on that this was a film about us. It wasn’t just a film about me. It was about him. It was about the people who would watch this film. It was about trauma, pain, the past, childhood, things that were not understood, things that nobody ever apologized for, that you felt slighted. And it was about resilience and hope, that you can change the past, you can change also what is happening now,” says Tan.
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Tan’s life and career in vivid, living colors.
In 1989, Amy Tan’s first novel, The Joy Luck Club, was published to great commercial and critical success. With the blockbuster film adaption that followed as well as additional novels, libretto, short stories and memoirs, Ms. Tan has firmly established herself as one of the most prominent and respected American literary voices working today.
Born to Chinese immigrant parents into 1950’s America, it would be decades before Ms. Tan would come to fully understand how her mother’s self-destructive tendencies were rooted in watching her own mother kill herself after being forced into the former marital system of concubinage. This painful family inspired her stories of women without the power to choose their lives.
An interweaving of archival imagery, artful animation and live performance from Ms. Tan form the basis for this documentary that allows the audience to journey through Ms. Tan’s life and career in vivid, living colors.
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