Family, Inc.

Description

Synopsis

When filmmaker Emily Ting was asked by her father to return to Asia and take over the family business, she didn’t exactly know how to say ‘no.’ Promising herself she would try it out for just one year, she traded in her friends, her filmmaking pursuits, and her love of New York for a grueling new life as a CEO in training in one of Hong Kong’s most notorious toy companies. Two years later, she’s still there – with no end in sight. In an attempt to come to terms with her new life, Emily turns the camera on herself and her family and the result is an incredibly honest and at times bittersweet family portrait that examines the price we pay when family and business become one.

Directors

Emily Ting

Emily Ting founded Unbound Feet Productions in 2001 after graduating from the Film/TV program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Named lovingly after her first short film, Unbound Feet Productions strives to create innovative works in both the documentary and narrative medium.

Unbound Feet, Emily’s first film, is about a Chinese mother’s inability to accept her daughter’s decision to get a divorce. The film screened at the Chicago Asian American Film Festival and won finalist at the 2002 Zoiefilm Festival.

Emily followed Unbound Feet with What’s Love Got to Do With It? – a lighthearted documentary taking a look at American born/bred Desis who are willingly going the arranged marriage route. The documentary has screened at film festivals nationwide, including the Hamptons International Film Festival, and was broadcast on RCN cable. In 2003, Emily was a finalist in the Richard Vague Production Grant Competition for her documentary Reality Check – about college graduates facing unemployment after graduation.

In 2004, Emily premiered One Night Stand, a romantic comedy about a one night tryst that could have been so much more, at L.A. Shorts Film Festival. Before moving to Hong Kong to help run the family toy business, Emily worked at Docurama, the documentary-exclusive DVD label based in New York.

Family Inc. is her first feature film.

Helen Jen

Helen Jen graduated from the Film/TV program with a concentration in Animation at NYU’s Tisch Schools of the Arts in 2001. She has since worked steadily in the animation industry in New York, Taipei and Los Angeles on shows that have aired on Disney’s Playhouse, MTV, PBS, Fox and Cartoon Network. She is currently working on PBS’ first prime-time animated series, focusing on her own fine art and handling storyboards for film projects.