TWINKLE DAMMIT!
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE | 70 MINUTES
In 1971, Margaret Leng Tan became the first woman to earn a Doctorate from the Juilliard School. Over the next five decades, she would redefine the boundaries of classical and avant-garde music, becoming the world’s leading toy piano virtuoso and a close collaborator of John Cage. At 71, we meet Leng Tan in the midst of a rare, late-life collaboration with George Crumb—one of the last living giants of 20th-century experimental music. TWINKLE DAMMIT! grants intimate access to their creative process, capturing a singular moment between two icons confronting age, legacy, and artistic risk.
More than a portrait, the film peels back the performance persona to reveal the private compulsions, quiet obsessions, and enduring playfulness that have shaped Leng Tan’s life-long devotion to art. Featuring unprecedented access to her personal archive and Crumb’s final years of composition, TWINKLE DAMMIT! is a vital document of American avant-garde history—an unfiltered look at the fragile brilliance behind musical innovation.
TWINKLE DAMMIT! has been officially selected by over 20 international film festivals and spotlighted by major cultural institutions including the Kennedy Center, Singapore’s Esplanade Theatre, China’s National Centre for the Performing Arts, and the Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum, among many others around the world.
The film was screened in over 300 cinemas across China, acquired by more than 10 international airlines, and championed by national arts councils and global distributors alike.
