quot;MAGICIANS follows four world-class magicians on stage and off, exploring how and why these characters so passionately dedicate their lives to the craft of illusion. Their journey takes us from the most humbling of road gigs to grand performances on the biggest of stages, from finding love to terrible personal loss; and to the prospect of losing everything for a dream others don't understand. As we come to understand why each is obsessively chasing his own dream, we'll discover the unhidden secret: far more fascinating than the magic are the magicians themselves."
In this powerful documentary, Mama Yang, an 84-year-old woman living in New York, finds herself in correspondence with 45 high security prison inmates she views as her own children. Most are Chinese American immigrants, and see in Mama Yang a mother figure they never knew before they stepped through prison walls.
For Mama Yang though, the story is about more than Christian charity. She had already lived a full life in Taiwan when her husband died at age sixty and her son lost their house in a financial blunder. She moved to the US to start anew and lives with a Taiwanese American granddaughter that remains distant. In a film marked by family separations, Mama Yang writes letters – whether to the incarcerated or to her own granddaughter – to heal lifetimes of wounds.