Forum Session: "Nuts and Bolts of Producing"
Premier of "Tuesdays After"

Quyen Tran, Writer/Director

Quyen Tran’s career in the visual arts escalated after the tragic events of September 11, 2001. Her photographs of the attacks on the World Trade Center and aftermath appeared in newspapers and magazines around the world, including The New York Times, USA Today (cover), London Herald-Dispatch, the HBO documentary In Memoriam, BBC World News and many more. Nominated for a World Press Photo Award, her photos were shown around the country in a traveling solo exhibition and as part of the Here is New York collection.

Quyen received fine art and photography training at the University of Virginia and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C., and has spent the last three years as freelance photographer and photojournalist for organizations including the Whitney Museum of American Art and The Associated Press in New York City.

This past year, Ms. Tran shifted her focus to filmmaking when she began the MFA program at UCLA’s famed School of Film & Television. She was one of only two people selected for both the Directing and Cinematography programs.

Quyen served as Cinematographer on the short comedy 20 Floors Under the Sea, which recently appeared in the Malibu, Silver Lake, and California Independent Film Festivals, Human/Nature, a new film by Indian director Geeta Malik, and Justin Lerner’s ECHO stop.

Her directorial debut was the 16mm comedy, Good Morning Tiger. Quyen recently completed her second film at UCLA, the ten minute Tuesdays After, based on her experiences in New York after 9/11.

Quyen is Vietnamese-American, and is fluent in Vietnamese, English, German and Italian.

We will screen Quyen's film and she will also provide assistance on the "Nuts and Bolts of Producing."

About "Tuesdays After"

Synopsis

Against her mother’s will, Thuy Nguyen moves away from her family home in the suburbs to join her boyfriend in New York City. The move further strains the already tenuous mother-daughter relationship, and although they undeniably miss one another, stubbornness prevails. That is, until one day in September, near fatal events bring Thuy to realize that life is too short, and love is unconditional.

A Letter from the Director:

Like many other New Yorkers, my life changed drastically on September 11, 2001. In one instant I lost my home, my place of work, and very nearly my life. Everything has been different since then.

There is no doubt that 9/11 was a tragic day for the entire world. For me, though, it also changed my life in positive ways – pursuing a new career, moving to a new state, becoming engaged, rekindling lost relationships, all directly or indirectly as a result of that day.

It also gave me a rare opportunity to glimpse what my parents must have endured in Vietnam before they escaped to America in 1975. War, injustice, terror – all in their back yard. They, too, lost their home, only to start a new, better life of freedom in the United States.

In the two years since that Tuesday in September, I have spoken about my experiences many times, but I have never written them down. This film is my attempt to reflect on what happened to me and to my family since that day – the Tuesdays after.

Tuesdays After will be my second film project in the Masters program at UCLA’s Graduate Film Department. It will be 6-8 minutes long, shot in color, on 16mm film. It is based on true events, but is not a simple autobiography.

I want to make this film a positive story of one woman’s journey to a new life. I trust you will find this an exciting opportunity to help a short tale of hope and family reach the screen.

Sampling of Her Photography in "Tuesdays After"
The film will also feature several still photographs that I took on September 11, 2001. These images will serve as a visceral reminder of the violence and suddenness of the attacks, without being gratuitous.

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