ABACUS: SMALL ENOUGH TO JAIL

Directed by Steve James

Asian American Panorama / USA / 2016 / documentary / 88 mins / Cantonese, English, Mandarin with English subtitles / DCP

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ABACUS: SMALL ENOUGH TO JAIL

UltraStar Mission Valley
Monday, April 24, 2017 3:50 pm

ABACUS: SMALL ENOUGH TO JAIL

UltraStar Mission Valley
Tuesday, April 25, 2017 7:45 pm

Description

Official Selection, 2016 Toronto International Film Festival
Official Selection, 2016 New York Film Festival

With the breathlessness of a legal thriller, ABACUS: SMALL ENOUGH TO JAIL exposes the racial underpinnings of American criminal justice: the biases, the PR stunts, the cruelty of the model minority myth and the collateral damage that comes with it. After the 2008 financial crisis, the federal government brought criminal charges against only one bank: a family business in New York’s Chinatown. Tom Sung’s Abacus Financial Savings was Chinatown’s Bailey Building and Loan: a neighborhood institution designed to cater to the specific needs of its constituents – in this case immigrants with little banking experience and unique cultural and communal ways of doing business. But in the eyes of the Manhattan District Attorney office, Abacus was easy prey.

Little did the DA know that Chinatown protects itself, and that the Sung Family was driven by the honor and mission of its founder and his three unyielding and extraordinary daughters. Along with legendary director Steve James (Hoop Dreams, The Interrupters), they elucidate the complexities of their business, and in so doing, ask significant questions about how the law intervenes in culture and vice-versa. –Brian Hu

Co-Presented by: PALSD, SDCWA, SDSU CONFUCIUS INSTITUTE, CCBA, and SAN DIEGO LUCKY LION DANCERS.

Director's Bio

Selected Filmography
1994: Hoop Dreams
2002: Stevie
2004: The New Americans
2008: At the Death House Door
2011: The Interrupters
2014: Life Itself