Shot in the kitchens, bedrooms, weddings halls and mahjong parlors of New York’s Chinatown, Your Day Is My Night (2013, 64 min., HD) is a provocative, many-layered hybrid documentary in which Lynne Sachs explores the immigrant stories that unfold in a “shift-bed” apartment—a domestic space shared, due to economic necessity, by people neither in the same family nor in a relationship. Seven characters ranging in age from 58 to 78 play themselves as Sachs transforms the shift-bed into a stage, illuminating a collective history of Chinese immigration through intimate conversations, dreams, autobiographical monologues, songs and theatrical improvisations. Since 1994, Sachs’ experimental films have investigated the intricate relationships between personal observation and collective memory, notably in locations of international conflict such as Vietnam, Bosnia and Israel.

In person: Lynne Sachs, cinematographer Sean Hanley