Special Collection

"All this identity thing. What is it you're looking for?" asks the elderly aunt of leading Japanese American poet, Lawson Inada. Through this intimate portrait, we explore Inada's answer to this complex question. His poetry, which deals with the multicultural experiences of Asian Americans, is interwoven with scenes from his life as he visits the Chicano neighborhood where he grew up, plays with h ... More

79 Spring Times of Ho Chi Minh

Santiago Alvarez

Producer: ICAIC

1969, 25 min., Color, Cuba

This impressionist biography on the leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam skillfully interweaves still photos, newsreel footage, and Ho Chi Minh's poetry. Depicting a life that spanned three revolutions, three continents, and three wars, the film charts Ho Chi Minh's progression from militant student to leader of Vietnam's revolutionary independence movement. Accompanied by a dynamic sound ... More

Acting Our Age

Gurinder Chadha

1992, 30 min., Color, UK

This humorous and thought-provoking film documents the residents of a South Asian home for the elderly in Britain. Director Gurinder Chadha assists the residents in directing their own video. The result is an examination of politics, ageism, and cross-cultural communication in contemporary British society. Interview subjects range from people on the street to Members of Parliament. The film ends w ... More

aletheia

Tran T. Kim-Trang

1992, 16 min., Color, US

An introduction to Kim-Trang's video series on metaphorical and physical blindness, ALETHEIA explores the interconnected issues of cosmetic surgical alteration of the eyelids, technology, language, race and gender. This video is a highly graphic examination of dominant notions of normalcy, beauty and their effects and impositions on the body. Part of the Blindness Series.

alexia

Tran T. Kim-Trang

2002, 10 min., Color, US

Alexia is an experimental video about word blindness and metaphor. Word-blindness is a condition that usually afflicts people who have suffered a stroke, causing them to lose the visual recognition of individual letters but perceive the entire word, or vice versa. Metaphor is discussed in its function to reveal and obscure perception. Divided into five short sections, the tape draws a pattern with ... More

amaurosis

Tran T. Kim-Trang

2002, 28 min., Color, US

Amaurosis is an experimental documentary about Nguyen Duc Dat, a blind, American Asian guitarist living in Little Saigon, California. Dat was a 'triple outcast': blind, Amerasian and an impoverished orphan. Beyond their disabilities, this community of Vietnamese-Americans is oppressed on many levels: language and cultural differences, immigrant and lower income status, and societal misunderstandin ... More

Animal Appetites

Michael Cho

1991, 18 min., Color, US

Michael Cho's biting critique on popular cultural stereotypes centers on the case of two Cambodian immigrants tried in California on charges of slaughtering their pet dog for food. Contrasting animal rights issues, cultural diversity arguments, and the unflinching testimonials of dog lovers, the use of animals typically thought of as pets for food is presented along with evidence of the thousands ... More

The Army Forced Them to Be Violent

Tino Saroengallo

2002, 43 min., Color, Indonesia

After the fall of President Suharto in May 1998, the student movement in Indonesia had to face the military/police repression in their fight for overall reform. Because of the repression and force that they encountered, the student movement itself became more violent, until eventually they challenged the military in the streets. This documentary provides gripping and inspiring eyewitness footage ... More

Asian Boys

Angel Velasco Shaw

1994, 19 min., Color, US

This documentary was produced in collaboration with performance artist Nicky Paraiso for his critically acclaimed multi-media performance at P.S. 122. Eleven different interviews with "Asian Boys" are intercut with images of "fish out of water" in Chinatown and footage from the Miss Universe contest in the Philippines. The interviewees’ responses to requests for childhood stories range from humoro ... More

B.E.S. (Bangla East Side)

Sarita Khurana & Fariba Alam

2004, 45 min., Color, US

B.E.S. (Bangla East Side) is a documentary portrait of four Bangladeshi teenagers growing up in the Lower East Side of New York City. Initially started as an after-school workshop at a local high school, the film follows Mahfuja, Jemi, Saleh and Maroofa as they travel between home and school, and as they negotiate their lives as young immigrant teens in post 9-11 America.

Bittersweet Survival : Southeast Asian Refugees in America

J.T. Takagi & Christine Choy

Producer: Third World Newsreel

1982, 30 min., Color, US

This documentary examines the re-settlement of South-East Asian refugees in the United States in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. The film begins with a montage of riveting footage depicting the devastating effects of the war. It then unveils the mixed reception given Vietnamese refugees in the United States, from battles with local fishermen in Monterey, California, to conflicts in Philadelphia ... More

Bombay Calling

Ben Addelman & Samir Malla

Producer: Adam Symansky & National Film Board of Canada

2006, 71 min., Color, India/Canada

Bombay provides American and British outsourcing firms with access to well-educated, English-speaking youths eager to get ahead and willing to sacrifice almost anything to do it. For their efforts, they are paid more money than their parents ever dreamed of earning. And they spend it frequenting a new brand of all-night discos that cater to their unusual office hours. In BOMBAY CALLING, filmmakers ... More

Borne in War

Va-Megn Thoj

Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop

1996, 9 min., Color, US

This semi-autobiography traces the maker's birth on a secret CIA military base in the hills of Laos to his anti-war college years during the Persian Gulf War. Mixing archival footage, family photographs and dramatization, Thoj looks at how his life life has been controlled and his identity shaped by the war into which he was born, and finally links his personal history to Hmong history under Frenc ... More

Camp Arirang

Diana S. Lee & Grace Yoon-Kung Lee

1995, 29 min., BW, US/South Korea

A gritty look at the camp towns surrounding U.S. military bases in South Korea. This documentary follows Yon Ja Kim, a charismatic 50-year-old former sex worker through American Town, a government subsidized entertainment district for U.S. airforce personnel. Now a missionary devoted to aiding sex workers and running a daycare center for fatherless children, Ms. Kim takes the audience on a journey ... More

The Chinatown Files

Amy Chen

2001, 57 min., Color, US

This documentary brings to the public, for the first time, a story that was classified as secret by the US government for over four decades. Exploring the roots and legacy of the Cold War on the Chinese American community during the 1950s and the 1960s, it presents first hand accounts of seven men and women's experiences of being hunted down, jailed and targeted for deportation in America. During ... More

Clouds

Scott Haynes & Fumiko Kiyooka

1985, 26 min., BW

A synthesis of documentary, dramatic, and experimental styles, this film follows two women recollecting their personal and familial experiences from World War II. One woman recounts the story of an aunt from Hiroshima whose father had been a member of the peace party when the militarist government forced its way to power. Exiled from Japan, they were then interned with Canadians of Japanese descen ... More

Comrades

Edward Wong

1999, 26 min., Color, US

COMRADES is a personal documentary essay about two men who took part in the violent socialist struggles of the mid-20th century, only to face resistance and disillusionment. The producer's father, Yook Wong, joined the communist revolution that swept through China in 1949. A generation later, a man named Alex Hing founded a group in San Francisco called the Red Guard, modeled after the communist y ... More

Corner Store Blues

Kaizad Gustad

1994, 48 min., Color

Although he feels trapped working in his uncle's corner store in Little India, Rahul dreams of someday making it as a blues musician. A real black blues musician. Now if only he can overcome his Bombay accent, nagging relatives, immigration papers, infatuation with a blues singer, and hold a tune long enough to avoid being thrown out of every audition he might just make it.

Dastaar: Defending Sikh Identity

Kevin Lee

Producer: Third World Newsreel

2005, 12 min., Color, US

A restaurant owner beaten. A policeman fired. A 20 year subway conductor born in the U.S., threatened with job loss: All for wearing the signature turbans of their religion, Sikhism. Since 9/11, hate crimes and job losses have plagued the Sikh-American community, whose religion originated in India, and is not even Islamic. In response, the NYC Sikh community has organized to confront the bias ... More

A Day of Plane Hunting

Democratic Republic of Vietnam

Producer: Democratic Peoples' Republic of Viet Nam

1968, 20 min., BW, Vietnam

This film demonstrates the crucial role that Vietnamese women played in the war. It focuses on the attempts made during the war to achieve the total participation of women in production, education and combat. It shows the new methods of cooperation developed by women in the areas of agriculture, defense, child care and other essential activities of daily life. (Vietnamese sound track; text transla ... More

Desi Remix Chicago Style

Balvinder Dhenjan

1996, 46 min., Color, US/UK

Shot in Chicago and London this energetic documentary follows three very different Punjabi bands and their attempts to use their music as a bridge between the competing cultural influences of India and America. They face and deal with racism, discover both Desi sex and Desi sexism, look for role models and confront politics, history, religion, and their own multiple heritages.

Devotion

Barbara Hammer

2000, 85 min., Color, Japan/US

DEVOTION investigates the extremely complex and hierarchical relationships among a loyal group of filmmakers who dedicated up to 30 years making films for one man--Ogawa Shinsuke. These heartbreaking and sometimes funny stories have never been told on film before. Rare footage, stills, and diaries from archives as well as interviews with Oshima Nagisa, Hara Kazuo and Robert Kramer make this histor ... More

Double Exposure

Kit-Yin Snyder

2003, 26 min., Color

A poetically inspired documentary, exploring the conflicts and contradictions of the "cultural statelessness" experienced by a first generation Chinese-American immigrant. It uses a series of first-person reflections and observations examining her passage from young Chinese girl to middle aged American woman. The film exposes the pushes and pulls of how she has come to understand the differences i ... More

ekleipsis

Tran T. Kim-Trang

1998, 23 min., Color, US

"I came across a New York Times article about a group of hysterically blind Cambodian women in Long Beach, California, the largest group of such people known in the world. Hysterical blindness is sight loss brought about by traumatic stress with little or no physical cause." This tape delves into two histories: the history of hysteria and of the Cambodian civil war. It examines the ascendant quali ... More

Epilogue: The Palpable Invisibility of Life

Tran T. Kim-Trang

2006, Color, US

How can we make visible the invisible? How can we "see" our lost loved ones? In EPILOGUE, Vietnamese-American filmmaker Tran T. Kim Trang looks for answers to these questions in the audio recordings of her dead mother, the handwritinng of the late French philosopher Jacques Derrida and the ultrasound photos of her newborn baby. Finding no ready-made answers, Tran invites us to reflect about life ... More

Excuse My Gangsta Ways

Corinne E. Manabat

Producer: Corinne E. Manabat & Third World Newsreel Workshop

2008, 15 min., Color, US

We all go through transitions in life, whether it's a career change, or moving, but for Davina Wan, hers has been very extreme - from the gang life to a "normal" life. Excuse My Gangsta Ways is a visual poetic documentary portrait on Davina Wan, a Chinese American woman, who was a former gang member from the 1990s Lower East Side. With interviews from her grandmother and godfather, we will take a ... More

Flow

Yau Ching

1993, 38 min., Color

FLOW is a multi-layered investigation of contemporary political, cultural and psychological dislocations. Interweaving interviews with image processing and a critical and formally flexible use of the documentary genre this tape questions of "identity", "nationhood", and "multi-culturalism".

Forgotten Warriors

Kim Jin Yoel

Producer: PURN Productions

2005, 99 min., Color, South Korea

A fascinating documentary about one of the little known legacies of the Korean War (1950-53), FORGOTTEN WARRIORS tells the stories of women guerilla fighters for North Korea who were captured, held for many years in South Korean jails - then released. Remaking their lives, assessing their past - and still socialist ot the core, this film profiles the characters and lives of these amazing women.

Freckled Rice

Stephen C. Ning

Producer: Stephen C. Ning & Yuet-Fung Ho

1983, 48 min., Color, US

This is a story of Joe Soo, a 13-year-old boy coming of age and coming to terms with his Chinese America heritage in Boston during the 1960s. His Boston encompasses Screamin' Jay Hawkins, the Kennedy years, "My Three Sons" and rock 'n' roll. It is a world his older brother has readily embraced and one his immigrant father fails to comprehend. An excellently executed drama, full of streetwise humor ... More

From Asia With Love

Sari Dalena

2002, 12 min., Color, US

A critical look at the proliferation of the mail-order bride industry in Asia and its representations of Asian women in the West.

From Spikes to Spindles

Christine Choy

Producer: Third World Newsreel

1976, 46 min., Color, US

This raw, gutsy portrait of New York's Chinatown captures the early days of an emerging consciousness in the community. We see a Chinatown rarely depicted, a vibrant community whose young and old join forces to protest police brutality and hostile real estate developers. With bold strokes, it paints an overview of the community and its history, from the early laborers driving spikes into the trans ... More

Gaman...to Endure

Bob Miyamoto, Drawings by Betty Chen

1982, 6 min., Color

An animated film told through a young girl’s eyes, it combines the drawings of Betty Chen and haunting music of Nobuko Miyamoto to tell of 110,000 Japanese Americans incarcerated in U.S. concentration camps during World War II.

The Good Son

Michael Sandoval

2002, 9 min., BW, US

Pummeling abag, a young Filipino-American fighter forges a space for himself in Queens, New York City -- a house dominated by the sermons of his minister father. Beneath the surface of this unspoken truce lie questions about religion, violence, responsibility and the meaning of being a man.

Grandmother's Flower

Jeong-hyun Mun

2008, 89 min., Color, South Korea

When director Mun accidentally discovered the diaries of his late granduncle, who was mentally ill, he unexpectedly learned about his family's secret history. The small mountain village in South Jeolla Province where Mun's family lived, was nursing the wounds from conflicts of class, ideology as well as from the displacement of family members in South and North Korea, and even in Japan. It turned ... More

Hanoi, Tuesday the 13th

Santiago Alvarez

Producer: ICAIC

1967, 40 min., BW, Cuba

Filmed in Hanoi on December 13, 1966, this documentary records the lives of people in the Vietnam capital and surrounding countryside at the height of U.S. bombing. Their daily activities are presented in a collage of images: building irrigation ditches, planting rice, fishing, weaving...life continued despite the shower of U.S. bombs. During these air raids, the people formed armed self-defense u ... More

Her Uprooting Plants Her

Celine Salazar Parrenas

1994, 17 min., Color, US

Ten years after immigrating to the United States, three Filipina sisters move out of the family house and open a sari-sari (corner) store. On Christmas Eve their family meet in the store and share stories about their longings for home, before taking off to work the graveyard shifts at their various jobs. The film portrays the conflicts between the immigrant and U.S. born generations while recastin ... More

Here to Stay

ManSee Kong

Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop

2008, 7 min., Color, US

Illustrates the effects of gentrification in Manhattan’s Chinatown as an elderly man and fellow tenants in endangered single-room occupancy building await the results of an anti-eviction lawsuit. A TWN Workshop production and part of the Call for Change Series.

Hito Hata: Raise the Banner

Duane Kubo & Robert Nakamura

Producer: Visual Communications

1980, 90 min., Color, US

This poignant drama chronicles the contributions and hardships of Japanese Americans from the turn of the century to the late seventies. This history is told by Oda, a feisty Issei--one of the elderly bachelor laborers living in Los Angeles' Little Tokyo. Veteran actor/director Mako leads a veteran cast of Asian/Pacific American actors and actresses including Pat Morita, Sachiko and the East-West ... More

Homeland Insecurity

Third World Newsreel

Producer: Third World Newsreel

2001, 6 min., Color, US

A recent string of hate crimes in the months following September 11th is set within the historical context of jingoism and nationalism in the United States.

Homes Apart: Korea

J.T. Takagi & Christine Choy

Producer: Third World Newsreel

1991, 56 min., Color, US/Korea

They speak the same language, share a similar culture and once belonged to a single nation. When the Korean War ended in 1953, ten million families were torn apart. By the early 90's, as the rest of the world celebrated the end of the Cold War, Koreans remain separated between North and South, fearing the threat of mutual destruction. Beginning with one man's journey to reunite with his sister in ... More

I'm British But…

Gurinder Chadha

1989, 30 min., Color, UK

This unique look at Asians in Britain offers first-hand views of second generation Asians, adding archival footage and invigorating Bhangra and Bangla music--traditional Punjabi songs updated with hip-hop and house music influences. From Manchester rooftops to embattled Belfast and the Welsh hills, Asians discuss the importance of expanding "Britishness" to include all kinds of cultural identities ... More

Japan Across the Seas

Mabel Maio

1998, 48 min., Color, Argentina

The Japanese who have settled in Argentina since the end of the 19th century came for many reasons: wanderlust, good farming, and even a love for tango. Japan Across The Seas weaves together the tales of the old and the young, the Japanese-born and the second-generation, to tell the history of the migrations that led to the establishment of Japanese-Argentine communities in Misiones, Buenos Aires, ... More

Jareena, Portrait of a Hijda

Prem Kalliat

1990, 25 min., Color, India

This video offers a profile of a transsexual and her community in the Indian city of Bangalore. It provides a unique insight into the lives of Hijdas, a society of eunuchs numbering in the tens of thousands who have thrived in India for centuries. The Hijdas work as prostitutes and are a close-knit group who live and work communally. Jareena, who assumes the role of a man when she visits her famil ... More

kore

Tran T. Kim-Trang

1994, 17 min., Color, US

The third installment in the series opens with two women who are blindfolded and making love. This visually lush and erotic exploration of blindness investigates questions of desire and power, empowerment and sexuality and AIDS/HIV as symbolized by the sense of sight.

Laos: the Forgotten War

Santiago Alvarez

Producer: ICAIC

1967, 20 min., Color, Cuba

This Cuban film focuses on the history of foreign intervention in Laos, first by France and then by the United States. It shows how the liberation forces of Laos, under continuous U.S. bombing, were able to run an entire society in hidden caves and tunnels. Through the leadership of the Pathet Lao, they organized schools, cultural activities, clinics, as well as political and military activities l ... More

Leaving Bakul Bagan

Sandeep Ray

1994, 45 min., Color

This moving documentary follows the filmmaker's cousin's imminent departure from India to pursue studies in the U.S. Torn between familial and national loyalties and her desire to travel and experience profoundly personal freedoms this film captures one young woman's embarkation into the world outside what she has known.

Lest We Forget

Jason DaSilva

2003, 55 min., Color, US

Through critical lenses, this film explores a lesson that history has forgotten in a country that is alienating its citizens and violating their basic rights. During World War II it was Japanese-Americans, now it is brown skin, Muslims and people of Arabic and South Asian descent. Can America survive this perpetration of gross injustices yet again? This documentary follows the events post-9/11, ... More

Looking For Wendy

Kimberly Saree Tomes

1998, 18 min., Color

Tomes' pseudo-search for her roots as a Korean adoptee takes her from her adoptive father who works in bio-engineering (genetically creating the world's juiciest tomato) to the adoptive relationship between Dave, the founder of Wendy's, and KFC's Colonel Sanders. This wry and ironic tape moves swiftly between pop-culture quotes and today's conventional wisdom on the relationship between genetics a ... More

Ma/baap

Siraj Jhaveri

1994, 30 min., Color

When your parents hate each other -- how do you learn to love? This award-winning, personal chronicle's the relationship between the filmmaker's Muslim father and Hindu mother --exploring their forbidden relationship in India, their elopement and eventual separation. Jhaveri interviews his reluctant subjects in the United States and travels to India to try and unfold the conditionalities of love a ... More

Maid to Stay

Aparna Talaulicar

1999, 30 min., Color, US

"Maid to Stay" is the story of four South Asian Women domestic workers in New York. Elizabeth has been sent back to India because her employers discover she's been talking to a women's group about how badly she's being treated. Shahida has escaped from trouble back home in Bangladesh and cannot return, but longs to do so. She doesn't like the work or being in the U.S. but must stay on. Nahar h ... More

Marriage

Bibo Liang

2001, 60 min., Color, China

MARRIAGE is an intimate portrait about the intersecting and antagonistic relations between generations and institutions. Filmed in 1997, it traces two sides of one mountain in a remote village in Southwest China. A matchmaker named Zhang attempts to unite two families while guiding them through six formal rituals for marriage that date back over 2000 years. What is at stake in the negotiation of t ... More

Mask: A Field Report on Masked Performance

Liu Xiaojin

2000, 120 min., Color, China

Since the time of the Qing Dynasty, villagers of Xiaotun have performed a folk opera in which all the actors wear masks. Known as the “Guansuo Opera”, its performances were suspended during the Cultural Revolution, and its script was burned. In 1980, through the approval of the local government, it started to perform again. “Mask” records the various antagonisms and attitudes amongst villagers, p ... More

Memories of a Forgotten War

Camilla Benolirao Griggers/Sari Lluch Dalena

Producer: Kawayan Films

2002, 57 min., Color, US/The Philippines

In the decade following the Spanish-American War, more Filipinos were killed by US troops than by the Spanish during the 300 years of colonial rule. More than 1 million Filipinos died between 1899 and 1913. This experimental documentary about the Philippine-American War of 1899 combines archival photographs and turn of the century film, digital video and 16mm footage to create memories of a forgo ... More

Mississippi Triangle

Christine Choy, Worth Long, Allan Siegel

Producer: Third World Newsreel

1984, 78 min., Color, US

This is an intimate portrait of life in the Mississippi Delta, where Chinese, African Americans and whites live in a complex world of cotton, labor, and racial conflict. The history of the Chinese community, originally brought to the South to work on cotton plantations after the Civil War, is framed against the harsh realities of civil rights, religion, politics, and class in the South. Rare histo ... More

Mommy, What's Wrong?

Anita Chang

1997, 14 min., Color

Along with optically-printed home movie and hand-processed Super-8 film footage, the filmmaker incorporates an interview with her mother about immigration, motherhood and spirituality, in search of strength from her mother. The rawness of the interview speaks to the tenuousness of oral history. The film traverses various auditory terrain--young daughterhood, a recurring dream, the interview, and t ... More

Mott to Mulberry

Herman Lew

1992, 30 min., Color, US

A lighthearted but poignant story about a second generation Chinese American teenager named Conrad. Living in New York City's Chinatown, Conrad's attraction to a local Italian girl clashes with the cultural forces of his family as well as with the urban environment of his neighborhood. This is a story about life, love and learning how to dance.

Mr. Ahmed

Terrance Grace

1994, 52 min., Color

Internationally renowned actor Naseeruddin Shah stars in this poignant drama of an Indian ex-patriate living in a small American town. The film paints a portrait of a man struggling to re-invent himself. As memories of a home and family left behind seep to the surface, the collision of the old and the new world forces his life into a critical turn, and an act which could destroy both worlds.

Nailed

Angel Velasco Shaw

1992, 50 min., Color

A Filipina's exploration of the Catholic Church and 400 years of colonialism in the Pacific region is woven in a montage of images, sounds, stories and performances. Inspired by Lucy Reyes, a woman who has been re-enacting the Crucifixion for 16 years by being nailed to across. The video looks at the implications of worship, national, cultural, and personal identity.

A Nice Arrangement

Gurinder Chadha

1990, 11 min., Color, UK

Set in the London home of an Indian family on the morning of their daughter's wedding, this film is a wry depiction of one of the most central of Indian traditions -- the arranged marriage. As the young Hindu bride, Meena, changes into her bridal sari, her divorced friend, Sita, helps with her clothing and her resolve. Together, the two women examine their different life choices -- Meena's decisio ... More

North Korea: Beyond the DMZ

J.T. Takagi & Hye Jung Park Edited by Dena Mermelstein

2003, 60 min., Color, North Korea/US

While this tiny state on the divided Korean peninsula is continually demonized in the U.S., few have any first hand knowledge of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. What is it like on the other side of the 38th parallel? How do Koreans in the North view this past decade with the fall of Soviet communism, natural disasters that brought famine and power shortages, and a continued, dangerously ... More

Not Simply a Wedding Banquet

Mickey Chen & Ming-Hsiu Chen

1997, 50 min., Color, Taiwan

The first public gay wedding in Taiwan has stirred up considerable controversy, including a local campaign to ban this film. It tells the story of Yosheng and Gary, the first gay couple to have a public wedding in Taiwan. Their wedding was held in conventional Taiwanese fashion: a wedding banquet with friends and family and even the mayor of Taipei as the promised wedding moderator.

ocularis: eye surrogates

Tran T. Kim-Trang

1997, 21 min., Color, US

The latest tape in Kim-Trang's eight tape series on metaphorical and physical blindness Ocularis: Eye Surrogates addressing issues of surveillance and technology that allow us to see what we normally can not. Through a 1-800 number publicized nationally, recorded messages were collected of the callers’ fears and fantasies about video surveillance. The video highlights several narratives around vid ... More

operculum

Tran T. Kim-Trang

1993, 14 min., Color, US

A visit with seven cosmetic surgeons specializing in eylid alteration, this piece juxtaposes text with consultation footage. OPERCULUM is revelatory of both the medicalization of race and the authority with which it continues to assert its ideology.

Orientations

Richard Fung

Producer: Gay Asians Toronto

1985, 56 min., Color, Canada

More than a dozen men and women of different Asian backgrounds speak frankly about their lives as members of a minority within a minority. They speak about coming out, homophobia, racism, cultural identity and the ways that being gay and Asian have shaped who they are. Active in Canadian lesbian and gay organizations, the Asian community, the women's movement, unions, the arts and human rights w ... More

Parallel Adele

Adele Pham

Producer: Adele Pham

2008, 16 min., Color, US

Two half Vietnamese documentary filmmakers, both named Adele, weave a shared narrative of mixed Asian (hapa) experiences through interviews with 7 other mixed race subjects. History, memory, and anecdotes on multiracial ethnicity are represented through archival images, super 8 film, verité, and interview.

People's War (Newsreel #43)

Newsreel

Producer: Newsreel

1969, 40 min., BW, US

This newly restored film records the mobilization and participation of the Vietnamese people in their country's fight against colonialism and foreign military aggression. Moving beyond the perception of the Vietnamese as victims, the film investigates a society fully committed to national liberation. It details their long history of resisting the U.S. military as well as their struggles to overc ... More

Repatriation

Dong-won Kim

Producer: PURN Productions

2003, 149 min., Color, South Korea

In the spring of 1992 documentary filmmaker Dong-won Kim met Cho Chang-son and Kim Seak-hyoung, two North Koreans arrested by South Korean authorities years before. Convicted of spying for the North, they were incarcerated and spent thirty years as political prisoners. These men, and many others like them, underwent conversion schemes in prison that involved torture: those who renounced their comm ... More

Rising Up: the Alams

Konrad Aderer

Producer: Third World Newsreel Call for Change

2005, 11 min., Color, US

As part of the Homeland security measures, immigrant men from 25, mostly Muslim countries were required to enroll in a Special Registrationprogram. The result: no evidence of terror, but some 13,000 people are now being deported mostly for expired visas. The Alams were among the many families who believed that voluntarily participating in the Special Registrationwould show their loyalty. Instea ... More

Rock Me, Goong Hay

Shelton Ito

Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop

1992, 5 min., Color, US

The Goong Hay Kid is the fictional Chinese rapper created and played by Alvin Eng. ROCK ME, GOONG HAY combines hip-hop styling with a forceful protest against stereotypes.

San Jie Cao

Bibo Liang

2001, 60 min., Color, China

In an area south of Chengdu, a quickly evolving metropolitan city in the remote high mountains, lies the home of the Moso people, an indigenous ethnic minority in China. In 1943, Xiao Shuming, then a high school girl in Chengdu, was taken against her will by a Moso headman all the way to Lugu Lake to be his concubine. After 54 years of living with his tribe and having raised two sons and two daugh ... More

Sewing Woman

Arthur Dong

Producer: DeepFocus Productions

1983, 14 min., BW, Canada

This intimate document of Dong's mother's life is essential viewing for those who want to understand more about Asian women who immigrated to the U.S. from China. Through home movies, family snapshots, and rare archival footage, it weaves a loving tapestry of his mother's efforts to build a new life in America. "I'm just a sewing woman," says Zem Ping Dong. But as a Chinatown garment worker, she s ... More

Sisters N Brothers

Veena Cabreros-Sud

1994, 4 min., BW, US

The repeated image of an encounter on the street between a young Filipino man and woman grows increasingly threatening as male and female voice-over articulates the moment. Set to the beat of bhangra house and ragga hip hop this tape is a metaphoric look at the issues around violence, self-hatred and community.

The Sisters of Ladakh

Ricardo Lobo

2003, 50 min., Color, US

THE SISTERS OF LADAKH is an inquiry into the feminine vision of Buddhism. Filmed on location in Ladakh, on the Himalayan border between India and Tibet, this one hour documentary features stunning photography and compelling testimonies of Tibetan nuns. THE SISTERS OF LADAKH documents their daily activities in an intimate and candid way, encompassing both their religious practices and the interacti ... More

Sky-blue Hometown

Soh-Young Kim

2000, 93 min., Color, Korea

This documentary traces the trajectory of a Korean diasporic community in the former Soviet Union. Placed in internment camps by Stalin during World War II, the plight of a generation of Korean-Russians was documented in secret by the artist Shin Sun-nam, whose epic painting 'Requiem' has only recently been made public.

Slanted Visions

Ming-Yuen S. Ma

1995, 50 min., Color

Working in collaboration with a diverse group of artists, writers, performers and musicians, many of them queer and Asian, Los Angeles-based media artist Ming-Yuen S. Ma has created a promiscuous montage inspired by and including gay porn, kung fu movies and TV cooking shows. Ma irreverently assesses the debate on positive/negative images, representation of sexuality and pleasure, sexual practice ... More

Some Divine Wind

Roddy Bogawa

1991, 72 min., Color, US

SOME DIVINE WIND (a reference to the Japanese term Kamikaze, or “divine wind”) tells the story of Ben, whose father was part of a U.S. bombing mission that destroyed his Japanese mother’s village—and killed her entire family—during World War II. Although his father discovered this horrible coincidence upon meeting his wife after the war, he keeps the realization secret. When his father has a break ... More

Spirit of the Dragon

Gil Gavreau

2003, 25 min., Color, Canada

In 1923, the Canadian government passed the infamous Exclusion Act, which barred all Chinese immigration to Canada for 24 years and required all Chinese-Canadian citizens to carry an identification card. Jean Lumb was one of those Canadians, and this documentary is her story. Jean worked much of her life to have this law changed, and in 1976, she was the first Chinese-Canadian ever to receive an ... More

Stubborn City

Pooja Rangan

2006, 9 min., Color, India/US

In 2005, 8 feet of rain fell in Bombay, India in one day. This poetic piece highlights the resilience of the impoverished neighborhoods of this ancient city that were most affected, and how people survive and thrive, despite the lack of government assistance.

Take a Look: NYC Chinatown Post 9.11

Kevin Lee

Producer: Third World Newsreel

2001, 4 min., Color, US

A closer look at one of the most historical neighborhoods near the World Trade Center finds a variety of personalities, viewpoints, and perspectives. Those who live and work in New York City's Chinatown describe how their community has been affected since the attacks.

Tapestry: Asian Women in America (a.k.a. Tapestry II)

Organization of Asian Women

Producer: Organization of Asian Women

1991, 55 min., Color, US

Through archival photographs, oral histories and folk songs by Nobuko Miyamoto, this video weaves the history of 200 years of Asian women's experiences. It begins with early Asian immigration to the U.S. from China, Japan, Korea and the Philippines and progresses to the 1950s.

Taxi-vala/auto-biography

Vivek Renjen Bald

1996, 45 min., Color, US

This documentary focuses on the lives and dreams of South Asian immigrant taxi drivers in New York City. Combining video and taxi-driver interviews and the personal narrative of the second-generation bi-racial, Indian-American video maker, TAXI-VALA looks at the complexities of migration, displacement, economic empowerment and the pursuit of the elusive "American dream" within New York's growing ... More

To Be Me: Tony Quon

Pat Lau & Don Miller

Producer: Visual Communications

1973, 10 min., Color, US

This award-winning short film follows Tony, an active ten-year-old Chinese immigrant as he describes adjusting to an American school. Tony describes his first impressions of "strange new classrooms", as the film journeys with him through Los Angeles. A Visual Communications Production, this film was funded by the Office of Education Emergency School Aid Act.

Toc Storee

Ming-Yuen S. Ma

1993, 21 min., Color, US

The first in a series by the artist addressing Asian/Pacific Islander Gay experiences, this multilevel narrative explores sexuality, identity, tradition and personal recollection through gay Asian storytelling.

Translating Grace

Anita Lee

1996, 20 min., BW, Canada

An innovative drama that explores the unique relationship between two Korean-Canadian women. Grace, a second generation feminist academic, and Hyang-Sook, a recent immigrant from Korea. Grace is the translator for Hyang-Sook's immigration interviews and finds herself facing a moral dilemma-- is translating a lie an act of lying itself? The conflict is played out in Grace's psychic lanbdscape. In a ... More

Turmeric Border-Marks

Christina Choe

2000, 25 min., Color

TURMERIC BORDER-MARKS is an experimental documentary set in modern Seoul, Korea, where an intersection becomes two stories of migration, globalization, hybrid identity, cracked mirrors and turmeric (a yellow spice powder). A young Korean-American college student voyages back to the motherland where she meets South Asian migrant workers. These parallel stories illuminate and question our assumption ... More

Two Months to Home

Janice Ahn

2006, 8 min., Color, US

In the months prior to 9-11, an Afghan woman named Samira Rahman narrowly escapes from the Taliban, losing her family. After settling down in Long Island and beginning a new family, Samira is taken away by Homeland Security agents in the middle of the night. Her husband Abdul, who runs a coffee cart in South Ferry, and their two young boys await news of her fate.

Umbilical Cord

Angel Velasco Shaw

1998, 28 min., Color, Phillippines

A kaleidoscope of the filmmaker's impressions of current events from the Centennial commemoration to recent elections and their relationship to the past one hundred years of Philippine struggle. In a series of montages, the filmmaker asks people from the markets to malls questions about what a hero means, who their heroes/heroines are, what they think of the centennial celebration, and what they t ... More

Undertow

Me-K Ahn

1995, 18 min., BW, US

"undertow" is an experimental short film which explores how the loss of family and culture can affect one's body consciousness and sexuality. It juxtaposes one adopted woman's reconstructed search for her birth mother (through a bleak urban landscape towards a phone booth) with the attempt to connect mind and body. Through multi-layered incorporation of text, dramatic and documentary footage, voic ... More

Urga Song

Jessica Woodworth

1999, 18 min., Color

URGA SONG is a lyrical cine-poem portraying democratic Mongolia from the perspective of young artists residing in the capital city of Ulaan Baatar. Poetic imagery of stark landscapes, dramatic cityscapes and the community of avant-garde artists in Ulaan Baatar is accompanied by the voices of a choreographer and a painter who eloquently address freedom, democracy and the relationship between art an ... More

War in Daechuri

Jeong II Geon

Producer: PURN Productions

2006, 45 min., South Korea

Spurred by the US government's plan to expand military bases in Pyeongtaek city, a war is being waged against the farmers of the South Korean village of Daechuri. In this joint effort by the South Korean and US governments to grab land that these farmers worked on for decades, schools and homes were destroyed, elderly women beaten, and thousands of police surrounded the village and enclosed it wi ... More

Wataridori: Birds of Passage

Robert Nakamura

Producer: Visual Communications

1974, 37 min., Color, US

Lyricism and visual beauty are evident in this film as four Issei (first generation Japanese Americans) describe a collective history through their personal memories. The filmmaker paints the canvas of their lives with lush imagery and testimonies of hardship and racism on both personal and institutional levels. In a moving scene, several Issei talk about the World War II evacuation, and in one pi ... More

We, Too, Sing America: Racist Backlash in the Aftermath of September 11

Yun Jong Suh

Producer: Third World Newsreel

2001, 12 min., Color, US

This short is a poignant and revealing document of the thoughts, hopes and fears of Muslim, Arab-American and South Asian children in the milieu of a country calling for war and unconditional compliance after the events of September 11th. Anxiety gives way to determination and perseverance as each of the children refuse to submit to popular sentiment and prejudice.

What Do You Call An Indian Woman Who's Funny?

Gurinder Chadha

1994, 19 min., BW, UK

What do you call an Indian woman who's funny in 20th Century Britain? A British performer? A Black comedienne? An enigma? This humorous and comedic documentary, brings the laughs and dreams of four Indian women cabaret performers while posing the questions: What is comedy and who defines it? Is it culturally specific, or can anyone enjoy the joke? Who makes it into the mainstream and why? Does com ... More

Will Be Televised

Shu Lea Cheang

1991, 300 min., Color

As video camcorders become more widely distributed in Asia, video makers have become active protagonists in the social and political changes taking place in the region. This series of tapes from five different parts of Asia offers a window on these movements. Each one hour tape illustrates Asia's struggles for freedom of expression and democracy from the perspectives of regional video makers, arti ... More

The Women of Waray Waray

Fruto Corre

1990, 5 min., BW, US

A satiric look at U.S. intervention in the Philippines, using a half-Eartha Kitt, half-Imelda Marcos look-alike and television footage to represent the bizarre relationship between s.

The Women Outside: Korean Women and the U.S. Military

J.T. Takagi & Hye Jung Park

Producer: Third World Newsreel

1995, 60 min., Color, US/South Korea

Documenting the lives of women who work in the South Korean military brothels and clubs where over 27,000 women "service" the 37,000 American soldiers stationed in the most militarized region of the world, The Women Outside follows their provocative journey from the outskirts of Seoul to the inner cities of America. A testament of endurance and survival, it raises questions about U.S. military pol ... More

Yoni

Jyoti Mistry

1997, 20 min., Color

This provocative short film explores women's power, force and passion through an enigmatic series of images, erotic performances and tableaux vivant. Beautifully shot, it references as well as recreates a trajectory of images of women throughout history. Moving from the slow, thoughtful effect of allegorical painting to the fast paced impact of MTV, Yoni plays with the structures of stylization, n ... More

Young Puppeteers of Vietnam

Democratic Republic of Vietnam

Producer: Democratic Peoples' Republic of Viet Nam

1969, 25 min., BW, Vietnam

Art, dance, music and poetry became a vital necessity for the liberated areas of South Vietnam in their daily efforts to survive the bombings and napalming of the Vietnam War. In this moving film, teenagers in the NLF liberated zones make beautiful puppets from the remains of downed U.S. warplanes. They work their puppet shows in dramatic ballet form. Armed with these puppets, they travel through ... More