Children of Invention

Last updated
Children of Invention
COI poster final sm.jpg
Directed by Tze Chun
Written by Tze Chun
Produced by Mynette Louie
Trevor Sagan
Starring Cindy Cheung
Michael Chen
Crystal Chiu
CinematographyChris Teague
Edited by Anna Boden
Music byT. Griffin
Distributed byN/A
Release dates
  • January 18, 2009 (2009-01-18)(Sundance)
  • March 12, 2010 (2010-03-12)(United States)
Running time
86 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Children of Invention is an American independent feature film written and directed by Tze Chun. It premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, screened at more than 50 film festivals, and won 17 festival awards including 8 Grand Jury or Best Narrative Feature prizes. The film was released theatrically in eight U.S. cities beginning February 2010, on Video-on-Demand in June 2010, and on DVD in August 2010.

Contents

Plot

The first half of the movie centers around Elaine Cheng (played by Cindy Cheung), a single mother and immigrant living in the Boston suburbs, and the life she provides for her two children (played by Michael Chen and Crystal Chiu). As a way to cope and entertain themselves, the kids invent things. The mother is drawn to pyramid schemes as a way to get ahead and repeatedly loses money. Eventually her two young children are left to fend for themselves when their mother is arrested by the police. The film is loosely based on Tze Chun's own childhood, [1] as well as his Sundance 2007 short film, Windowbreaker. [2]

Production

Though set in Boston, the film shot 20 days in and around New York City and 4 days in Boston. [3] The film premiered at Sundance just 10 months after the first draft of the script was completed. [4]

Critical reception

The film was very well received by critics, including The New York Times , Los Angeles Times , The Village Voice , New York Post , Variety , LA Weekly , USA Today , Chicago Reader , Film Threat , and The Boston Globe . It was named one of the Top 13 Films of 2009 by Hammer to Nail, and one of the best undistributed films of 2009 by several critics including IFC's Alison Willmore. In 2010, the year of its commercial release, it made several more "best films of the year" lists including the list by Turner Classic Movies' blog.

Accolades

The film also won the following 17 festival awards:

Distribution

Tze Chun and the film's producer Mynette Louie were named in Ted Hope's list of "21 Great Free Thinkers of Indie Film" for their DIY festival/DVD distribution strategy. [5] The film debuted theatrically in Boston on February 26, 2010, and in New York and Los Angeles on March 12, 2010, followed by additional theatrical engagements in other cities. It was released on Video-on-Demand beginning in June 2010, and on DVD on August 10, 2010.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ondi Timoner</span> American film director

Ondi Doane Timoner is an American filmmaker and the founder and chief executive officer of Interloper Films, a full-service production company located in Pasadena, California. Timoner is a two-time recipient of the Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Prize for her documentaries Dig! (2004) and We Live in Public (2009). Both films have been acquired by New York's Museum of Modern Art for their permanent collection.

<i>Brother to Brother</i> (film) 2004 American film

Brother to Brother is a 2004 film written and directed by Rodney Evans. The film debuted at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, where it was awarded with the Special Jury Prize for Dramatic Feature. It went on to play the gay and lesbian film festival circuit where it collected many top festival awards. Brother to Brother was given a limited theatrical release in November of 2004.

Heather Rae is an American film and television producer and director. She has worked on documentary and narrative film projects, and is best known for Frozen River, Trudell, and Tallulah.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emily Kunstler</span> American documentary filmmaker

Emily Kunstler is an American documentary filmmaker. Kunstler grew up in New York City's West Village neighborhood.

Tze Chun is an American film and TV producer, director, writer, and comic book publisher. He was born in Chicago and raised outside of Boston, and graduated from Milton Academy in 1998. He received his bachelor's degree in film studies at Columbia University.

<i>Skills like This</i> 2007 film

Skills like This is a 2007 comedy film directed by Monty Miranda, written by Spencer Berger and distributed by Shadow Distribution released theatrically on March 20, 2009. The DVD released on November 17, 2009 and the Premium Cable premiere on Starz and Starz On Demand 1.1. 2010. It stars Berger, Gabriel Tigerman, Kerry Knuppe and Brian D. Phelan.

The Dallas International Film Festival (DIFF), presented by Dallas Film, is an annual film festival that takes place in Dallas, Texas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2010 Sundance Film Festival</span>

The 26th annual Sundance Film Festival was held from January 21, 2010 until January 31, 2010 in Park City, Utah.

Dylan Riis Verrechia is a Barthélemois award-winning film director, auteur, screenwriter, and producer. He grew up in Saint Barthélemy, French West Indies, and was bedridden at age 8 from severe ankylosing spondylitis for ten years. A graduate with honors of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Verrechia's movies have screened at film festivals around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2011 Sundance Film Festival</span>

The 27th annual Sundance Film Festival took place from January 20, 2011 until January 30, 2011 in Park City, Utah, with screenings in Salt Lake City, Utah, Ogden, Utah, and Sundance, Utah.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2011 Slamdance Film Festival</span> American film festival in Utah

The 2011 Slamdance Film Festival was a film festival held in Park City, Utah from January 20 to January 27, 2011. It was the 17th iteration of the Slamdance Film Festival, an alternative to the more mainstream Sundance Film Festival.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dave Boyle</span> American film director

Dave Boyle is an American director, writer, editor, and actor. He has written and directed several movies that utilize primarily Asian or Asian-American casts, including the feature films Big Dreams Little Tokyo (2006), White on Rice (2009), Surrogate Valentine (2011), Daylight Savings (2012), and Man from Reno (2014), several of which have won awards at film festivals around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Azazel Jacobs</span> American film director and screenwriter

Azazel Jacobs is an American film director and screenwriter. He is the son of experimental filmmaker Ken Jacobs. His short films include Kirk and Kerry and Message Machine, and his features include the acclaimed Momma's Man,Terri,The Lovers, and French Exit.

Mynette Louie is an American film producer of Chinese descent. She was nominated for a Primetime Emmy and Critics Choice Award in 2018 for HBO's The Tale, won the 2015 Independent Spirit Awards John Cassavetes Award for Land Ho!, and won the 2013 Independent Spirit Awards Piaget Producers Award. She was also nominated twice for "Best First Feature" at the Independent Spirit Awards for I Carry You With Me and The Tale. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kalyanee Mam</span>

Kalyanee Mam is a filmmaker whose film, A River Changes Course, which she directed and produced, has won several awards, including the Grand Jury Award for World Cinema Documentary at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and the Golden Gate Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 2013 San Francisco International Film Festival.

A River Changes Course is a 2013 documentary by Kalyanee Mam. The film explores the damage rapid development has wrought in her native Cambodia on both a human and environmental level. The film premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 2013 and won the Grand Jury Prize for World Documentary. The film also received the Golden Gate Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 2013 San Francisco International Film Festival.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi</span> American film director

Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi is an American documentary filmmaker. She was the director, along with her husband, Jimmy Chin, for the film Free Solo, which won the 2019 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. The film profiled Alex Honnold and his free solo climb of El Capitan in June 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jennifer Phang</span> American filmmaker

Jennifer Phang is an American filmmaker, most known for her feature films Advantageous (2015) and Half-Life (2008). Advantageous premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, winning a Special Jury Award for Collaborative Vision, and was based on her award-winning short film of the same name. Half-Life premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and won "Best Film" awards at a number of film festivals including the Gen Art Film Festival, the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival as well an "Emerging Director Award" at the Asian American International Film Festival.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diane Paragas</span>

Diane Paragas is a Filipino-American documentary and narrative film and commercial director. She is best known for writing, directing and producing the 2020 film Yellow Rose. Yellow Rose was Paragas' debut narrative feature The film was selected as the Opening Night Film of the 2019 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. Yellow Rose won Grand Jury Prizes at LAAPFF, Bentonville Film Festival, CAAMFEST37, and Urbanworld where it also took the Audience Award. The film also won the Audience Award at the Hawaii International Film Festival.

References

  1. ↑ Brian Brooks (2009-01-08). "Tze Chun, "Children of Invention": Pyramid Schemes, Herbalife and Collaboration". IndieWIRE . Retrieved 2010-04-02.
  2. ↑ Jonathan L. Knapp. "Children of Invention". San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. Archived from the original on 2010-02-18. Retrieved 2010-04-02.
  3. ↑ Ty Bur (2009-01-22). "Difficult times, past and present". The Boston Globe . Retrieved 2010-04-02.
  4. ↑ Michael Tully (2009-04-08). "A Conversation With Tze Chun". Hammer to Nail. Retrieved 2010-04-02.
  5. ↑ Ted Hope (2009-12-28). "21 Great Free Thinkers of Indie Film". The Wrap. Retrieved 2010-04-02.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.