Restoring Family Bonds through Storytelling and Vulnerability: A Film Screening and Discussion


Date: Wednesday, May 25, 2022 (Panel)
Time: 5:00 p.m PT – 6:00 p.m. PT, 8:00 p.m. ET – 9:00 p.m. ET,
​Location: ​Zoom

Virtual Screening: May 18th to 25th before the panel discussion, and till May 30th, 2021after panel ($10 per person ticket price)
https://watch.showandtell.film/watch/journeyof1000milescornell

Join the Cornell Asian Alumni Association and the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business as we celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in partnership with Bamboo Shoots Productions. We will be presenting a discussion panel exploring family estrangement and reconciliation, intergenerational family relationship and caregiving, through the act of authentic storytelling and vulnerable conversations about loss, grief, and parent-child relationship.

Speakers featured are Director/Producer of Journey of a Thousand Miles, Dr. Zhu Shen 沈竹 (Cornell Johnson MBA ‘98), and Daphne Kwok, Vice President, Diversity Equity & Inclusion, AAPI Audience Strategy at AARP. The discussion will be moderated by Leezel Tanglao of the Asian American Journalist Association (AAJA).

We invite alumni to watch the scenes from the documentary on their own time before the event and come hear from the filmmaker about the experience of growing with the film-making process, available to stream from May 18th to May 30th, here.

Virtual Screening Content:

Exclusive scenes from Zhu’s personal documentary film – Journey of a Thousand Miles, edited by her son Perry Chen, which documents her journey from a “Tiger Mom” to a “Zen Mom” and their Mother-Son relationship from tug of war to best friends and creative partners with unconditional love and trust. Janet Yang, the legendary The Joy Luck Club Executive Producer and Governor of the Academy of Motion Pictures, called Zhu’s documentary sample “an ode to the bond between mother and son, told with radical vulnerability and honesty,” and “a deeply moving look into the love that binds a family.”
Film trailer here.

Oscar-qualified animation – Changyou’s Journey, which Zhu produced that her son Perry Chen wrote and directed while in high school.

Speaker Bios:

Speaker – Zhu Shen, Ph.D., MBA ‘98, Writer/Director/Producer, Journey of a Thousand Miles, Producer, Changyou’s Journey
Dr. Zhu Shen is an award-winning film producer, best known for two Oscar-qualified, critically acclaimed animation shorts she produced: Ingrid Pitt: Beyond the Forest about a young Holocaust survivor, animated by her 11-year-old son Perry Chen, won three U.S. film festival awards and screened at over 30 international film festivals; and Changyou’s Journey about her late husband’s life, written and directed by Perry Chen in 2018, and premiered at Toronto International Film Festival and won five U.S. film festival awards. She is currently writing, directing, and producing her first feature film, a personal documentary, Journey of a Thousand Miles. Shen’s love for movies started when she grew up during the Chinese Cultural Revolution when movies were the only mass entertainment available. In her former life, Shen was an award-winning biotech executive, author, speaker, China business expert featured on national and trade media including Fox, Business Week, China Central Television, Pharmaceutical Executive, and the Scientist Magazine. She earned her Ph.D. in biochemistry from University of Colorado, her MBA at Cornell University Johnson School of Management, studied medicine at Peking Union Medical College, and pre-med at Peking University.

 

Speaker: Daphne Kwok, Vice President, Diversity Equity & Inclusion, AAPI Audience Strategy, AARP
Daphne Kwok is the Vice President of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Asian American
& Pacific Audience Strategy at AARP. Her work empowers Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) to choose how they live as they age. She brings to AARP her experience as a “leader of leaders” through her community service in promoting and empowering the AAPI community. Ms. Kwok was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2010 to chair his Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, as the “eyes and ears” of the community advising the President and the federal government about the issues impacting the AAPI community. Ms. Kwok’s board service includes: Chair of APIAVote, a member of the Comcast-NBCUniversal Joint Diversity Advisory Council, Co-Chair of the Nielsen External Asian Pacific Advisory Council, board member of the Asian American Advertising Federation and board member of Normal Next.

 

Moderator: Leezel Tanglao, Convention Programming Co-chair, Asian American Journalist Association (AAJA)
Director of Audience Insights and Innovation, The Points Guy
Leezel Tanglao is a bridge journalist at the intersection of editorial, product, business development and sales. She has worked at such media companies including HuffPost, Associated Press, CNN, CBSNews.com, ABCNews.com, KCBS/KCAL, VICE News, and Press-Enterprise. She is currently the Director of Audience Insights and Innovation for The Points Guy. She was named Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) member of the year in 2018. She is the Filipino Young Leaders Program (FYLPRO) President and is the Chair of the FYLPRO COVID19 task force.