This narrative feature movie is shot with a mini-digital video camera, with a volunteer cast and crew for most of whom, this is their first feature length movie.
“The tragic suicide of two Chinese American sisters 20 years ago shocked the residents of Chinatown and struck a chord with many immigrant families. Today the story is the basis for the micro-budgeted “Sunrise on Mulberry Street” from Oishi Movies Inc…The movie is a fictionalized account based on the true story. Tam’s version portrays the struggling Szeto family, in which the father pressures his son to be successful and his daughters to adhere to strict Chinese values. The family confronts cultural and generational problems, which eventually leads to the dramatic end…Jackson Ning, who plays a leading role as the father, is a friend of Tam’s who had never acted. ‘Most of the people had never acted before, and all of them had never done a feature movie before, but it turned out very well. It made the movie more real.’ Tam said. ‘And a lot of it was luck. During the scene where the girls jump off the roof, it was so real that the people in the building and across the street called the police. By that time, we had finished shooting, but I said: ‘Wait, let’s use this,’ so we filmed the real police arriving. In a sense, we were very lucky, and it added even more to the realism in the film.'”—– from The Villager, January 27, 1999, by Rebecca Little.
FACTS: Sunrise On Mulberry Street
A Big Movie by a small camera!
This narrative feature movie, including titles and credits is 102 minutes long.
It is shot with a mini-digital video camera which weighs 5lbs.
For movement shots, a light plastic steadycam was used.
The script took a year to complete, from start to finish.
Actual production took six weeks, mostly on weekends.
Rough edit took a month, on AVID Media Composer 1000
Final edit took a week, shaving 20 minutes off the rough cut.
Locations used include Chinatown in New York and Jones Beach.
All cast and crew are volunteers.
All locations are offered pro bono.
This is the first public performance for Jackson Ning who plays Mr. Szeto.
For most of the cast and crew, this is their first feature length movie.
Dr. Thomas Tam was born on April 15, 1946 in Fujian, China, during the Chinese Civil War. He spent his childhood in Hong Kong where his parents had to rebuild their home from the ground up. Dr. Tam and his family immigrated to New York in 1964. He received BA in physics from City College of New York (1968), M.A. in film-making from Montclair State University (1978), M.P.H. from Columbia University School of Public Health (1980); and Ph.D. in SocioMedical Sciences from Columbia University (1983). He is Chairman of the Asian American Higher Education Council, and Executive Director of Asian American/Asian Research Institute, as well as the President of Oishi Movies, Inc. which produced a feature: Sunrise on Mulberry Street.
After graduating from City College of New York, Tam developed an active interest in community improvement in Chinatown, when he initiated a ten-day health fair which screened two thousand five hundred residents, leading to the establishment of Chinatown Health Clinic, now known as the Charles B. Wang Health Center. Tam’s career in community health continued when he became administrators of various City-wide health agencies. He taught at Columbia University, Herbert Lehman College, and St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia.
In 1989, he was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the City University of New York as the first Chinese American member. Dr. Tam worked with a group of faculty members to establish the Asian American Higher Education Council, an organization which addresses critical issues concerning higher education in the Asian American community. Under Tam’s leadership, this organization has successfully organized numerous conferences and the creation of the Asian American / Asian Research Institute (AAARI), where he served as Executive Director from 2001 to 2006.
In addition to his contribution to the fields of community health and higher education, Dr. Tam also has an abiding interest in movie making, an avocation which he has nurtured since college. He has produced many short movies which have been exhibited at various institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art. Tam has also founded the Asian American Film Festival in 1972, which became Asian Cine Vision, an organization with international recognition for showcasing movies from Asian/Asian American artists. Dr. Tam is a recent convert to Buddhism and has completed a documentary video, En Route to Lhasa.
Dr. Tam is survived by his wife Margaret, his daughter Anika, and step-children Emily and Victor.
