FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Juliet Brenegar, Diane Rostyak 212-989-7425
E-mail: brenegar@pov.org, rostyak@pov.org
In 1979, three-year-old Sokly Ny and his family fled war-torn Cambodia, traveling through the jungle on foot in the dead of night to escape the wrath of the Khmer Rouge. Only his father stayed behind, sacrificing himself to Pol Pot's soldiers so his family could get a fresh start elsewhere. The refugees made it to the United States and settled in San Francisco, but the harsh reality of the American dream proved much tougher than they had ever imagined. Now an 18-year-old high school senior with a new American name, Sokly "Don Bonus" Ny turned the camera on himself for a year to create a.k.a. Don Bonus, an unflinchingly honest, gripping, and deeply personal video self-portrait. Made under the guidance of veteran filmmaker Spencer Nakasako, the film offers viewers an unprecedented inside look at a Southeast Asian immigrant family's struggles to make it in the U.S. Part of P.O.V., broadcast television's only continuing forum for independent non-fiction film, a.k.a Don Bonus, a co-presentation of the National Asian American Telecommunications Association (NAATA), will air nationally Tuesday, June 25 at 10 P.M. ET on PBS (check local listings).
Nakasako and Bonus met in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco where the producer taught a class on video techniques to a group of at-risk refugee teenagers at a community center. "Don stood out in the group," Nakasako recalls. "He was totally interactive with the camera in his hand. He could never stay out of a scene." After the class ended, Nakasako approached Bonus about making a video diary. "At first I thought it's gonna be simple, but it turned out to be very difficult for me," Bonus confesses at the beginning of the film, speaking directly into the camera. "To live my life and to think about videotaping at the same time, it's very hard. And especially with my family. We're from Cambodia and we're pretty traditional. Talking about issues, about family secrets to the public, we don't do that."
At school, Bonus and his mostly Asian American friends look and act like teenagers anywhere in the country, dressing in baggy hip-hop clothes, playing basketball, hanging out in the halls between classes, banging lockers and trading insults. But Bonus, his report card crowded with D's and F's, is hanging on by his fingernails to stay enrolled. "Miss Shafer, could you tell a little bit about me when I was a junior?" Bonus asks one of his teachers. "You were a vegetable," she says, squinting up at the camcorder. "You sat there and looked out the window."
At home, Bonus and his family struggle to stay afloat in a hostile environment sharply divided along class and race lines. In Sunnydale, their perversely named grim, barracks-style housing project, neighbors throw rocks at their windows, breaking the glass. Their apartment is burglarized repeatedly. "They cleaned up everything," Bonus tells the camera after the second break-in. "Including the sofa, the clothes, the dishes, and, um, the soy sauce." Afraid to go outside, the family finds refuge behind barred windows, waiting and hoping for a better life.
a.k.a. Don Bonus is a searing portrait of a family shredded by the pressures of life in their adopted country. Bonus's mother divides her time between her second husband's house and the apartment she has rented for her sons. Yearning for a father figure, Bonus turns to his oldest brother, Chandara, but he is too busy with his own family, job, and college studies to devote much attention to his siblings. At Thanksgiving, Chandara invites Bonus and his younger brother Touch to celebrate at his in-laws' house. The clash between the two worlds is heartbreaking. "His wife's family is rich, so I think Chandara is embarrassed about us," Bonus says sadly, as his camcorder pans the sparkling crystal glasses and cloth napkins on the polished table of the middle-class home. "Chandara is the one who carried me through the jungle. We used to be close. But now he got a wife and kid...and he hardly come around any more."
Fleeing Sunnydale, the family of 10 crowds into a one-room studio in the Tenderloin. But things begin to look up as the Housing Authority finally grants them Section 8 housing near Golden Gate Park. "All my life, we never had a house like this which is big and nice and in a quiet environment," Bonus says excitedly. "We have our own backyard. And I have my own room." In another coup, Bonus passes his writing proficiency exam, the only obstacle still remaining between him and a high school diploma.
Meantime, harrassed by a black kid at his school, Don's brother Touch brings a gun to school in self-defense and is arrested for attempted murder. In a time of crisis, the family closes ranks and rushes to Touch's aid. On Bonus's high school graduation day, his family misses the ceremony to attend his younger brother's court hearing. One brother graduates, the other is shipped off to reform school. Even in times of triumph, the dark side of the American dream is never far away. "One good thing that happened when Touch got arrested is that, you know, my mom, she's more into the family. It's like the family is more together now," Bonus tells the camera wistfully. "The only thing missing is Touch. If he could be with us, everything would be fine."
a.k.a. Don Bonus is a co-presentation of the National Asian American Telecommunications Association (NAATA), the leading provider and promoter of Asian American film and video for public television.
Producer's Note:
The American Documentary, the company that produces P.O.V., is in pre-production for a new series composed entirely of video diaries. E.C.U./Extreme Close Up, broadcast television's premiere series of first-person television, is slated for public television in 1997. With 16 million camcorders in America -- many capturing dramatic moments unavailable to professional journalists and producers -- E.C.U. will offer audiences unfolding, real life drama with an unprecedented level of intimacy and authenticity.
Spencer Nakasako has worked in many facets of filmmaking. He has worked in the Southeast Asian community in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco for the past four years, training at-risk refugee teenagers in video production. Nakasako was one of the producers of SCHOOL COLORS, a documentary about the 1994 class at Berkeley High School. He wrote the screenplay and co-directed a feature film about Hong Kong, LIFE IS CHEAP ... BUT TOILET PAPER IS EXPENSIVE, with Wayne Wang. Additionally, he produced and directed two documentaries, MONTEREY'S BOAT PEOPLE, in 1984 about the conflict between Vietnamese and local fishermen, and TALKING HISTORY, in 1986, about the history of Asian women in the United States. Both won numerous awards and aired nationally on PBS.
Sokly "Don Bonus" Ny was born in Cambodia and came to the U.S. with his family when he was six years old. Bonus was a participant in the Vietnamese Youth Development Center's Summer Peer Resource Program, through which he directed his first video, PUNK, a short piece about a basketball wizard who takes his anger out on a friend. He recently accepted a full scholarship for the California Institute of the Arts' summer intensive film/video art program.
Producer/Co-director Spencer Nakasako
Co-director/Subject Sokly "Don Bonus" Ny
Editor Ruby Yang, Debbie Lum, Sean Thomas
Suzanne Singer is executive producer of P.O.V.; Lisa Heller is series producer. Major funding is provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and public television viewers. Funding for P.O.V.'s Minority Funding Partnership is provided by the National Asian American Telecommunications Association (NAATA), the National Black Programming Consortium (NBPC), the Aaron Diamond Foundation, and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. P.O.V. is presented by a consortium of public television stations including KCET/Los Angeles; WGBH/Boston; and WNET/New York.
P.O.V. is produced by The American Documentary, Inc.; Ellen Schneider is executive director and Marc Weiss is director of special projects. Ward Chamberlin is chief executive officer.