BREATHIN’: THE EDDY ZHENG STORY

Directed by Ben Wang

Asian American Panorama / USA / 2016 / Documentary / 61 mins / Cantonese, English, Mandarin with English subtitles / DCP

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BREATHIN’: THE EDDY ZHENG STORY

UltraStar Mission Valley
Saturday, November 5, 2016 8:35 pm

Description

Audience Award (Documentary), 2016 CAAMFest
Official Selection, 2016 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival

Eddy Zheng: immigrant, youth, prisoner.

“I am what I am today,” Zheng says, “because the community gave me a second chance.” Zheng, who came to the U.S. as a 12-year-old with his family, knows what he did was inexcusable. Reading pages of his confession transcript to filmmaker Ben Wang, he laments his own crimes, committed with friends when he was 16, including violently breaking in to a neighboring home, terrorizing parents and children, and taking valuable goods from their store.

Zheng was tried as an adult for kidnapping and robbery and served over 20 years in prison. We hear from one of the children whose home he broke into, now an adult whose letter spells out why Zheng should remain in prison. His own family was hesitant to help, lying to relatives about him attending college while he was incarcerated.

While in prison, Zheng started bodybuilding and educating himself, even trying to start an ethnic studies curriculum. After a close brush with deportation, Zheng, now in his 40s, shares his time and story with inmates and young immigrants.

Eddy Zheng: husband, father, activist. –Wilda Wong

Co-presented by:United Domestic Workers Union (UDW) & APALA and A. Philip Randolph San Diego Chapter, NAPAWF-SD

Preceded By

LAPS

R.J. Lozada / USA / 2015 / 16 mins
The 1000 mile club at the San Quentin State Prison uses running to reflect on the past and live for the present.
Precedes: BREATHIN’: THE EDDY ZHENG STORY