Chinese-American filmmaker Theresa Loong creates an intimate portrait of her father, a man fifty years her senior. In this documentary, we explore the bonds of the father-daughter relationship and place themes of growing older, immigration and racism in the context of “living history.” Paul Loong talks of his experiences as a POW in Japan and his subsequent quest to become an American. We discover why, despite much suffering, “Every Day Is a Holiday.”

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About the Director

Theresa Loong is an interactive media artist who creates intergenerational storytelling experiences focused on memory, identity, and immigration through the use of film, games and apps. She provided editorial and strategic consulting services to AMC Networks (for shows such as "Breaking Bad" and "The Walking Dead"), New York Magazine, The New York Times, and Milestone Film. Theresa is an award-winning multimedia director and producer whose work has been exhibited at the SVA, Triennale di Milano and Circulo de Bellas Artes. Theresa was a consulting producer on interactive documentary projects about Afghanistan, the Disability Rights movement, and Joseph Papp. She worked on PBS films “So Very Far from Home,” "Shanghai 1937" and “China Now: To Get Rich Is Glorious.” Theresa lectures at Bloomfield College in the Creative Art and Technology program. She is a graduate of Harvard University, where she studied social anthropology and conducted ethnographic research using film and video, and received her MFA from Hunter College.

In addition to “Every Day Is a Holiday,” Theresa is directing "Game On," a documentary about game design Brenda Romero, and "Bought/Broken," a virtual reality work using collaborative sculpture to share stories about intimate partner violence. She is an Oculus Launch Pad and Flaherty Film Seminar fellow. Theresa received an NEA Arts in Media grant and was an Artist-in-Residence at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island National Monuments. She is chairperson of the board of directors of The FilmShop.

*This event is co-sponsored by the Spurlock Museum of World Cultures.

*This event is supported by the U.S. Department of Education Title VI National Resource Center (NRC) program.