Helloooo friends!! Greetings from Crystal in NYC!!
I’ve been selected for the UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art Collaborative Studio, an eight-month program in NYC starting this October, together with 11 local and international fellows. I’m raising funds to cover the program costs and would be so grateful for your support!
After years of drifting between Hong Kong and the US, I returned to NYC this year. Under our ever-changing political and societal landscape, I found my friends, both old and new, carry grief in many forms. One saw the most violent and dehumanizing scenes in NYC during COVID. Another fears being uprooted by shifting visa policies. Another is healing from divorce while navigating life as a single-mom filmmaker. And I carry my own grief—the weight of the Hong Kong protests that have shaped me for the past six years.
So, how should we process trauma, both personal and collective? How do we make sense of the current state we’re living in?
Through UnionDocs’s CoLAB, I’ll be working with local and international artists, receiving mentorship and space to develop projects that explore these questions. I hope to create conversations and connections that allow us to share our grief and begin to imagine new narratives—new ways of addressing trauma and resilience in this world.
I’m grateful to UnionDocs for this opportunity. With your support, I can build my work, host community activities, and carry these conversations forward—while easing the challenges of living and working in NYC.
Thanks so much for your support! :)
I’m an independent filmmaker, photographer, and writer from Hong Kong. My work explores the intersections of memory and trauma, identity and politics. My last film, The Grass is Greener on the Other Side (2022), premiered at the Taiwan International Documentary Festival and DMZ Docs Asian Competition. The film follows the poignant journeys of Hong Kong migrants navigating life in the aftermath of the 2019 protests.I’m an independent filmmaker, photographer, and writer from Hong Kong. My work explores the intersections of memory and trauma, identity and politics. My last film, The Grass is Greener on the Other Side (2022), premiered at the Taiwan International Documentary Festival and DMZ Docs Asian Competition. The film follows the poignant journeys of Hong Kong migrants navigating life in the aftermath of the 2019 protests.
