Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir

Premieres nationwide Monday, May 3
at 9:00 p.m. on PBS (check local listings)

Also available on the
PBS Video app.

Tune in May 3rd at 9/8c

American Masters—Amy Tan: Unintended Memoirpremiered at The Sundance Film Festival in February 2021 to audiences and media that embraced Tan’s story of personal trauma and her use of creative expression to build resiliency. The film is an intimate portrait of the groundbreaking writer that interweaves archival imagery, including home movies and personal photographs, animation and original interviews to tell the story of Tan’s life and career.

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.

Directed by James Redford Produced by Karen Pritzker

Tune in May 3rd at 9/8c

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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Media Quotes

“The documentary is a touching tribute to Tan’s prolific career as an author, and also a celebration of the personal relationship we have with what we create.”

- Nick Allen, Rogerebert.com
Full read here.

“Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir eventually works the same subtle spell that Tan long ago mastered in her fiction: the communication of a deeply personal history of pain and joy in a manner that is unassumingly and touchingly universal.”

- Jessica Kiang, Variety
Full read here.

"No American Masters has the craft, animation, production values and direction that this piece did. Jamie Redford- well, I'm bereft at the loss of him as an audience member - the care to detail was extraordinary - Amy has endured every aspect of the creative life - from the highs of popularity to writer's block - and the story is woven with such skill- it is satisfying and resplendent at the same time." Adriana Trigiani, New York Times bestselling author

“Xaviera López’s varied animated sequences bring additional emotional depth as they visualise the moments that would otherwise be painful to see in real life. When combined, the documentary creates a heartbreaking and moving portrait of an understated creative mind. Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir delivers a deeply personal insight that not only celebrates the woman in front of the camera but also the man behind it.”

- Katie Smith-Wong, FlickFeast
Full read here.

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