Unfinished Works: Another American Love Story - John Vega
6:30 – 8:30PM
Join the Film Lab for its signature and longest-running program: Unfinished Works! In Unfinished Works, a new screenplay will be read by seasoned Film Lab Actor Directory actors for a live audience, followed by a workshop of the screenplay with moderator Mahima Saigal and screenwriter John Vega. As part of the audience, you will be invited to directly participate in the creative process! This is an exciting adventure form watching a performance read to becoming an actual part of the shaping of a screenplay in progress! RSVP early as these events sell out quickly.
In John Vega’s “Another American Love Story,” YU-RI HA arrives in America from Korea, hands full of money, in 1978 in the hopes of starting a business. She is not welcome in this predominantly second- and third-generation European town. She becomes bitter and, even though she gets her citizenship, never warms up to the American way. Yu-ri’s only sister and last surviving family member is killed on the streets of Seoul by a madman, resulting in her twelve year old niece, KYUNG LEE, coming to Roseland Park, New Jersey to live with her. The shy girl feels alienated and uncomfortable with the attention her good looks attract. Against Yu-ri’s wishes, she becomes a model at 19 and commutes to New York.
Meanwhile PEDRO GARCIA’s family perishes in the 1978 Guatemalan civil war. The ten year old’s failed attempt to pull his mother away haunts him daily. For the next twenty-four years, he struggles to navigate the rough life of the streets, until he finds God and is reborn. He decides to make the illegal trek into the U.S., and settles just outside Roseland Park, where the day laborers gather to seek work on one side of the main avenue. On the other side, successful Korean and non-Korean commuters catch their bus into the city.
It’s the story about the volatile environment that is created when people of different communities cross paths and eye each other with the stereotypes society imposes about their race and ethnicities.