"On Saturday, December 9, Austin Asian American Film Festival held a free screening of the films of the five nominees for best narrative short. Among them was “Home is Where the Sunsets,” a story about family and the independence of a twenty-something by the name of Allison, who lives away from her family in Los Angeles while they are in Hong Kong. She faces the ups and downs of loving and missing her family, while also having a strained relationship with them that doesn’t always allow her to express her love for them the way she would like to.
U.S.-filmed “Home is Where the Sunsets,” an eight-minute story that focuses on a Chinese family visiting their daughter in Los Angeles and directed and written by Kayla Tong. The film explores the pitfalls of being a child with family in another country, as well as complicated family dynamics.
“Home is Where the Sunsets” has something for all audience members. Some may relate to living abroad away from your family, while others may feel a connection to the family aspect of the plot."
"Visual Communications, a community non-profit which has focused on supporting AAPI filmmakers since its founding in 1970, will be holding its annual interns’ summer film screening this year on July 28th at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, California. This year’s program will include ten short films curated from Visual Communications’ Armed With a Camera (AWC) Fellowship program, as well as entries from the 32nd Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. The screening’s films will focus on filmmakers’ broad and diverse vision of AAPI and diasporic API identity."
(Excerpt, translated)
"East and West, wandering and settling are not unfamiliar to the 23-year old Kayla Tong. 8 years ago, she left Hong Kong all by herself at 15 to pursue her dream of movie directing. Her English name "Kayla" is from the Hebrew language, meaning "laurel and crown". She aspires to become a humanistic female filmmaker like Ann Hui who has won dozens of Hong Kong Film Awards.
Kayla is good at depicting the delicate feelings of humanity, and the stories of the marginalized society and ethnic minorities in the US, especially of the Chinese Americans. Having graduated from the nation's oldest, largest and most Oscar-winning film school - USC School of Cinematic Arts, she is,achieving her dream.
In her latest work, Home is Where The Sunsets, Kayla brought to the screen the cultural conflict a Hong Kongnese girl encountered during her long-term stay in the US, with dialogues in the Chinese language for the first time. The short film was premiered at the 2016 Los Angeles Asian Pacific film Festival in April, with approximately 800 spectators."
"Fully comprehending the realities of Hollywood, yet determined to brave them regardless, up and coming filmmaker Kayla Tong is willing to take her chances. Sporting ombre hair, a cheery smile and a glowing tan, Kayla Tong dresses and looks like a SoCal girl, but this young female filmmaker is actually born and raised in Hong Kong. Kayla boldly decided to depart from her home city at the age of 15, hoping to break the glass ceiling of Hollywood and to create emotionally resonant films that capture the marginalized in the society."
