Apricot Films

05/09/2025

Important read.

Taxing endowments is likely to weaken elite institutions, not fix them. That’s the point, Rose Horowitch writes. https://theatln.tc/YQhjIUDx

“As part of its attack against elite universities, the Trump administration has frozen billions of dollars in federal funding for Columbia and Harvard, and has announced a scheme to revoke Harvard’s nonprofit tax-exempt status,” Horowitch writes. “Now congressional Republicans are considering a move that would have even bigger long-term consequences for higher education: imposing a steep tax on university endowments.” A 14 percent tax—in the middle range of the proposals—would cost Harvard about $560 million a year, according to one analysis.

“Taxing the fattest university endowments has long been championed by the political left as a way to get the likes of Harvard and Yale to share their obscene wealth in the name of fairness,” Horowitch continues. But the idea has made its way to the right, where MAGA sees it as “a weapon to make elite higher education poorer, weaker, and less influential.” J. D. Vance has argued that a high tax would force universities to rein in “DEI and woke insanity.”

Some Republican legislators are gesturing at a kind of redistributive logic. But “available evidence suggests that taxing university endowments does not, on its own, solve any of higher education’s affordability or exclusivity problems,” Horowitch explains. Moreover, such taxes would “restrict resources for scientific research, an area already much diminished by the Trump administration.” And although the very wealthiest universities, such as Harvard and Yale, can probably weather the effects of an endowment tax without too much damage to their core mission, a higher endowment tax would be especially painful for smaller institutions.

“My deep concern is that this is going to irreparably damage these institutions in a way that we will live to regret,” Phil Hackney, a tax-law professor at the University of Pittsburgh who has spent years criticizing how tax exemptions can privilege rich individuals and institutions over everyone else, told Horowitch. “But when damaging universities is the point, that argument is unlikely to prevail,” she continues.

🎨: Ben Kothe / The Atlantic. Sources: spxChrome / Getty.

01/29/2025

Tyrus at the Walt Disney Family Museum enjoying the exhibit highlighting all of his work!

10/16/2024

Hot off the press a new book about Tyrus Wong’s life and his heartfelt, passionate, whimsical, deeply dramatic art. Karen Fang’s “Background Artist” explores in great detail the textured layers of Tyrus Wong’s experience as a Chinese man and immigrant at the dawn of the twentieth century through its entirety and into the 21st century.

If you do not know Tyrus’ varied and multiple uses of painting styles and techniques, the book offers many wonderful examples and images from Ty’s childhood through to his last year living until the age of 106 years.

Making the documentary “Tyrus” has been the greatest privilege of my life. Working with Tyrus Wong and to realize his story with my friend and director, Pamela Tom, has been a grand adventure in storytelling.

Finding the essence of Tyrus’ story — all its joy, grit and racist horrors along with realizing his tremendous, HUGE output & body of work — was utterly enormous and frankly daunting. When we approached Tyrus and said we wanted to tell his story, Tyrus responded, “I’m not important. Why me?.” Both Pam and I had to what I like to metaphorically say, convince him to climb back down out of the tree. He was almost mad at us wanting to film and interview him. After we told him why his life is important to future generations, he accepted, and let us find a way to tell his story. (And, that’s a story for another day.)

Pam unearthed what Tyrus had to endure and overcome. Ms. Fang pays tribute to Pam’s commitment to getting to the heart of Tyrus’ story and the themes that resonated through the decades of his journey in what was both a magical & hostile road.

Extraordinarily, Ms. Fang has discovered and brought out even more threads, nuances and details that made Tyrus’ life both profound & impactful universally and specifically to the Chinese communities throughout the United Stares and specifically here in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento.

After reading Ms. Fang’s “Background Artist,” one comes away with discovering the unique gift that Tyrus Wong has brought to American artistic and cinematic culture: a Chinese emotional and vibrant elegant sensibility. Tyrus’ genius brought the poetry of the Song Dynasty paintbrush to 20th century celluloid and American mid-century decorative arts.

What Tyrus had to endure and ultimately overcome was both an intimate and amazing journey to process. Working with Pam Tom, ever patient and available , Tai-ling Wong, and the rest of the welcoming Wong family, dear , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leslee Leung, Sanders, Lisa See and oh so many giving & wonderful filmmakers, curators, historians, kite-flying experts, the list is long and extraordinary and is an example of a community embracing a beloved treasure of a human being.

We use to call ourselves Team Tyrus — Our researchers, cinematographers, sound designers, editors, designers, and production team all were vital & brought so much to TYRUS. Without such a vast network collaborating together along with a sisterhood of women & friends and funders, this vast & deeply deserving & culturally vital story to the silver screen would have been impossible to make. *I am most proud and congratulate everyone contributing in bringing Tyrus’ incredible story to so many. Thank you Ms. Fang for expanding Tyrus’ story and reach, shedding more light on a man we all loved and hope we can leave the world with as much dignity as Tyrus did.

Congratulations to all.

10/16/2024

Here producer Tamara Khalaf experiments with different designs for the title of the film. (I just show one frame of one design here though Tamara would show at least a dozen possible approaches.) We needed to visually show funders and others not as familiar with Ty’s work how he single-handedly brought Chinese culture to the American public.

Tamara’s skill and design talent helped us to present & highlight how Tyrus’ style and philosophy, greatly influenced by the Song Dynasty, shaped Golden era Hollywood.

Working with Tyrus and to live with his art was the greatest of gifts.