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For Mike Siv, the trip begins innocently enough.  "Me and my homies, David and Paul, we're going to Cambodia.  We'll see the sights, visit family, have some fun."  But after their journey, they will never be the same.  These three young refugees, raised on the streets of San Francisco's tough Tenderloin district (a.k.a. the "T.L."), head back to Cambodia for the first time in REFUGEE, a new documentary by the Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, Spencer Nakasako.

The film revolves around Michael "Adoe" Siv, a gregarious 24-year-old who moves easily between worlds--the street corner and the college campus; Cambodian and American cultures.  He and his mother escaped to the U.S. during the 1979 Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia.  It was a horrific time, with the country still devastated from the Vietnam War and in chaos from the bloody regime of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.  To escape further bloodshed, Mike and his mom fled, leaving his dad and younger brother behind.

In his teenage years Mike flirted with street life in the T.L., where he and his mother settled as refugees.  Now enrolled in college, he has decided to return to Cambodia to meet his long-lost father and brother.  Accompanied by long-time friends Paul Meas and David Mark, Mike sets off on a journey that takes him to a new Cambodia rising up from the killing fields, and into the blurred entanglements of his family's past.

The trip seems ordinary at first: a whirlwind of vaccines, passports, visas and buying gifts.  However, even before the plane takes off, the journey takes an unexpected turn.  Right before Mike's departure, his mother reveals some shocking news from Cambodia: his father is remarried, has another family and his younger brother Nang was raised by an aunt.  Mike's vision of his family is shattered.  As he puts it, "That's a whole lotta truth.  I learned more about my family in that one hour than I heard in my whole life."  Shaken up, but still determined to carry on with his original plan, Mike boards the plane.

The reunion turns out to be a happy, yet strange moment.  For the first time ever, Mike knows what it feels like to call someone "Dad" and to see the smile of recognition on his younger brother's face.

Knowing he only has a few precious days with his father, he tries to live in the moment and enjoy their time together.  Yet he is haunted by questions from the past.  What was the true reason the family was separated?  What really happened at the Thai border the day Mike and his mother escaped?  Is there a more painful truth underneath the facade?

Mike Siv and his father live on opposite sides of a chasm wrought by emotion and history.  In between lies a quagmire of political upheaval, military invasion, years of being apart and living in different worlds.  In REFUGEE, a simple reunion becomes a journey of discovery.  It is a film about families, war, separation and ultimately, acceptance.

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Spencer Nakasako   -----   Director, Producer

Spencer Nakasako won a National Emmy Award for a.k.a. Don Bonus, the video diary of a Cambodian refugee teenager that aired on the PBS series P.O.V. and screened at the Berlin International Film Festival.  Kelly Loves Tony, a video diary about a Iu Mien refugee teenage couple growing up too fast and too soon in Oakland, CA also aired on P.O.V.  Nakasako wrote the screenplay and co-directed a feature film about Hong Kong, Life is Cheap . . . But Toilet Paper is Expensive, with Wayne Wang, and was one of the producers on School Colors, a documentary for Frontline about the 1994 graduating class at Berkeley High School.  He produced and directed Monterey's Boat People, about the conflict between Vietnamese and local fishermen in his hometown of Monterey, CA, and Talking History, about the history of Asian women in the US.  Both films received numerous awards and aired nationally on PBS.  For the past fifteen years, Nakasako has been working in the Southeast Asian communities of San Francisco and Oakland, training at-risk refugee youth to make films about their own lives.  In addition to teaching film in the Ethnic Studies Department at the University of California at Berkeley, he has also had artist-in-residencies at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, the University of Toronto and, most recently Stanford University.

Jannette Eng   -----   Producer

Jannette Eng has worked as associate producer for several San Francisco-based documentaries, including Respect for All, an educational series aimed at teaching school-aged kids tolerance for diversity from the Academy Award-winning Women's Educational Media and Race: The Power of an Illusion, a three-part PBS series that challenges commonly held notions about race.  She has also served as consultant for various independent productions, including the Oscar-nominated Daughter from Danang.  Prior to that, Eng was a production manager at the Independent Television Service (ITVS).  She is a past recipient of the McKnight Screenwriting Fellowship through the Playwright's Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Aram Collier   -----   Co-Editor

Aram Collier most recently co-directed Who I Became with Mike Siv. The film was part of the nationally televised PBS series Matters of Race. Collier first worked with Spencer Nakasako as a high school student in 1996 as part of a youth video workshop in the Tenderloin.  The workshop resulted in Tenderloin Stories, a program of four short videos that won several youth video awards, was broadcast on public television and played at various festivals, including the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival and Taos Talking Pictures.  Collier attended University of California at Santa Cruz where he graduated in 2001 with a B.A. in Film and Digital Media.

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Tourists coming to San Francisco thread their way through the Tenderloin as they head to the American Conservatory Theatre, the Hilton Hotel, and the upscale restaurants and galleries surrounding Union Square. When they stray even a block from the bright, shop-lined streets, they suddenly notice the neglect and deterioration of the neighborhood around them. Evidence of social problems--drug and alcohol abuse, violence, high unemployment, and overcrowding--is everywhere. Most day-trippers beat a hasty retreat for the relative safety of the next street or two over. But for the people who live here, including an estimated 12,000 Southeast Asian immigrants and refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, the Tenderloin is home. This is where they are raising their children: at the time of the 1990 Census, 1,029 youths ages 15-19--67% of them of Asian backgrounds--lived in the Tenderloin.

The Tenderloin is a neighborhood whose youth often come from complicated home lives and whose economic prospects are dim. School is a struggle for most, and many are drawn to the social structure provided by gang life. Although their English skills are limited, compared to their parents and gradparents they have picked up the language quickly and become fluent in the universal language of teens: sex, drugs and video games.  



     
      San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival Mar 2003
     
      Chicago Asian American Showcase Apr 2003
     
      Stanford University May 2003
     
      IFP Los Angeles Film Festival June 2003
     
      InFACT Film Series, Los Angeles Aug 2003
     
      InFACT Tour: Little Rock, AR Sept 2003
     
      San Diego Asian Film Festival Oct 2003
     
      Tallgrass Film Festival, Wichita, KA Oct 2003
     
      Washington DC Asian Pacific American Film Festival Oct 2003
     
      InFACT Tour: Austin, TX Oct 2003
     
      The Hamptons International Film Festival Oct 2003
     
      Pomona College, UCLA, Long Beach State University Oct 2003
     
      InFACT Tour: Durango, CO Oct 2003
     
      Hawaii International Film Festival Nov 2003
     
      InFACT Tour: Seattle Nov 2003
     
      Walker Art Center, Minneapolis Nov 2003
     
      Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival Nov 2033
     
      International Documentary Film Festival, Amsterdam Nov 2003
     
      Global Peace Film Festival Orlando, FL Dec 2003
     
      Yale University Jan 2004
     

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