Center for Asian American Media
Posts tagged with: documentary
HOLLYWOOD CHINESE Los Angeles Premiere
Posted October 31, 2007 by michella in In Theatres
If you are in LA next week don't miss HOLLYWOOD CHINESE at the AFI Fest Wednesday, November 7 at 6:45PM.
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Lee Wang
Posted by michella in Filmmaker Profile, In Theatres, Featured
Filmmaker Lee Wang showed her film, SOMEONE ELSE’S WAR at the 2007 San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. We got a chance to sit down and talk with her about her film, civilian contractors in Iraq, and documentary filmmaking. Check out our conversation in the featured video section to learn more about Lee and her powerful film.
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HOLLYWOOD CHINESE screens in Manhattan
Posted May 2, 2008 by rsotelo in In Theatres
HOLLYWOOD CHINESE starts in Manhattan on May 2 at Quad Cinema. Chat with Tony Award-winning playwright and HOLLYWOOD CHINESE cast member David Henry Hwang in person for post-screening Q & A, May 4, Sunday, 2:50pm screening only. Limited seating, advance tickets advised!
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BOLINAO 52 Screening & Discussion
Posted April 25, 2008 by rsotelo in CAAM Events, In Theatres
KQED Education Network and the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at UC Berkeley present a screening and discussion of Bolinao 52, a Vietnamese boat people documentary on Thursday, May 1, at 7:00 pm in Sibley Auditorium (Bechtel Engineering Center) on the UC Berkeley campus. This free screening will feature a discussion with the filmmaker Duc Nguyen.
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PILGRIMAGE
Posted October 31, 2007 by michella in Featured
With a hip music track and never-before-seen archival footage, PILGRIMAGE tells how an abandoned WWII concentration camp for Japanese Americans was transformed into a symbol of retrospection and solidarity for people of all ages, races and nationalities in our post 9/11 world.
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Behind the Scenes: The Story Behind the Documentary OUT OF THE POISON TREE
Posted April 9, 2008 by rsotelo in Articles
In 1977, director and producer Beth Pielert was sitting in a Hebrew school class reading about Anne Frank who perished in the Holocaust and was told never to let something like the Holocaust happen again. But even at just age seven and 13,000 miles away, genocide was happening all over again in Cambodia.
Years later Pielert met a former Nuremberg prosecutor who sparked a theme for a film – people who were creators of justice after a great injustice had occurred. After being introduced to one of the founders of the Yale Cambodian Genocide Studies Program at Yale University, Pielert began researching films that had been made about Cambodia and discovered many detailed accounts of the genocide, but none that explored the forgiveness or reconciliation process – this was 1998.
Fast forward to 2006 where the subjects and characters of Pielert’s documentary, OUT OF THE POISON TREE, take us on a journey toward understanding what happened in Cambodia and how people have come to forgive after ‘The Killing Fields.’ It follows Thida Buth Mam, an American survivor of the Khmer Rouge, as she returns to her home country with hopes of unlocking the mystery of her father’s disappearance in 1975. Mam’s quest intersects with many silent voices: widows, survivors from remote villages, monks and even former perpetrators. Her search for the truth stirs up fractured pieces of one family’s nightmare, unearths an unimaginable heartbreak and ultimately shines light on a people’s broken silence. OUT OF THE POISON TREE is even more relevant today as the Khmer Rouge Tribunal proceedings continue on, prosecuting those who committed serious crimes during the 1975-1979 regime.
For more information and related classroom activities, download or print the nine-page OUT OF THE POISON TREE Educator’s Guide . The documentary is available on DVD for educational purchase or rental from CAAM Educational Distribution.
For other similar films about Cambodia, check out REFUGEE, THE FLUTE PLAYER and MONKEY DANCE
.
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Festival Stars: Where are they now? (Part 1)
Posted November 1, 2007 by johnfong in SFIAAFF
Are Dan “Bjorn Turoque” Crane (“To air is human, to air guitar, divine”) and David “C-Diddy” Jung (“Asian fury, air supremacy”) of AIR GUITAR NATION still rocking the air?
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WHATEVER IT TAKES: First Log
Posted October 31, 2007 by chriswong in Whatever It Takes, Guest Filmmaker Blog
Hi everybody, my name is Christopher Wong, and I’ve been asked to write a weekly blog about my feature-length documentary film WHATEVER IT TAKES – a year-long story about a new public school in New York City’s South Bronx.
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WHATEVER IT TAKES: Finding the Story
Posted November 21, 2007 by chriswong in Whatever It Takes, Guest Filmmaker Blog
Shooting 140 hours of footage is one thing. Logging, organizing, capturing, and digitizing it is quite another… We are now just over halfway done with the review, and it’s obvious that the discussions we are having now will save us a tremendous amount of time and effort later.
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WHATEVER IT TAKES: Shaking dat money tree
Posted November 30, 2007 by chriswong in Whatever It Takes, Guest Filmmaker Blog
I used to think that the hardest part of producing a documentary was the shooting and editing. Now I know better. Raising money is far more difficult… Why? Because ultimately, one has absolutely no control over how the funding decisions are made.
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WHATEVER IT TAKES: Breaking Stereotypes
Posted December 6, 2007 by chriswong in Whatever It Takes, Guest Filmmaker Blog
Started editing today on our Final Cut Pro system. Definitely feels good to finally be at this stage, when all the footage gradually morphs into comprehensive scenes. I’m looking forward to developing our main characters into the fullest and most meaningful realization of who they truly are.
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IFP Independent Film Labs: Call for Entries
Posted February 14, 2008 by ellen in Filmmaker Opportunities
Open to first time feature directors in the later stage of narrative and documentary post-production, the Labs identify high quality, independent features that can benefit from the support and expertise of experienced film professionals. Led by seasoned independent producers, the Labs help independent filmmakers achieve the full potential of their material prior by providing feedback and advice.
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WHATEVER IT TAKES: The Man and the Mission
Posted February 22, 2008 by chriswong in Whatever It Takes, Guest Filmmaker Blog
For those of you who have been keeping track of this blog about my film “Whatever It Takes”, let me first apologize for being a bad, bad blogger these past four weeks. I do have a decent excuse, though, because I was incredibly busy planning some fundraising events in three different cities. As someone who has never done this before, let’s just say that it was (and continues to be) a mighty difficult undertaking.
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AMONG B-BOYS: Bringin’ in the New Year part 1
Posted January 2, 2008 by Christopher Woon in Among B-Boys, Guest Filmmaker Blog
At Among B-Boys 2, April 2007. Let’s hope this New Year jam is this good…
12/28/2007, Part 1 - 99 Problems but a Shoot Ain’t…
(this is a 3 part posting. This first was written Thursday night and Friday Morning
If you’re having production problems, I feel bad for you son. I got 99 problems but a [...]
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AMONG B-BOYS: Return of the B-Boy Episode III
Posted January 30, 2008 by Christopher Woon in Among B-Boys, Guest Filmmaker Blog
B-Boy Sukie gets a follow up interview
It seems that the beginnings of my filmmaking/multimedia production career are thus based on gut feelings. And I am constantly riding through so many feelings that sometimes it’s like I have the biggest gut in the world. I’m talking Jabba the Hutt big. Lately my gut feeling’s been a [...]
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AMONG B-BOYS: Building Community
Posted February 21, 2008 by Christopher Woon in Among B-Boys, Guest Filmmaker Blog
With documentary or even anthropological research, sometimes you hear about being an “objective”, fly on the wall… or I guess it also reaches into journalism ethics (so I’ve heard/assume). Don’t disturb the natives! They say. That’s not me, I stir sh… stuff up! I had been reflecting for a little bit today and thought [...]
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WHATEVER IT TAKES: We Are a Family
Posted February 29, 2008 by chriswong in Whatever It Takes, Guest Filmmaker Blog
Everyone tells you that you can’t make a film by yourself. So true. But while it’s absolutely crucial to have a wonderful camera crew and editing team, it also really helps to have an awesome film organization (or two) backing you up. For this project, we have had amazing support from CAAM, and I want to spend some time bragging about them… (FYI, CAAM did not put me up to this; this is completely my own doing.)
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WHATEVER IT TAKES: We got into Sundance!!!
Posted April 14, 2008 by chriswong in Whatever It Takes, Guest Filmmaker Blog
Well, kind of… I should explain. Since July 2007, WHATEVER IT TAKES has been supported by the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund. Besides CAAM, Sundance has been our other major backer, providing us with not only a large grant, but also much needed creative and technical assistance.
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CAAM Media Fund project CALAVERA HIGHWAY at SFIFF
Posted April 23, 2008 by rsotelo in Events
CAAM Media Funded documentary Calavera Highway premieres Sunday, May 4, 6:15 pm at Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, 1881 Post St. at Fillmore, San Francisco
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WHATEVER IT TAKES: There Can Only Be One
Posted May 6, 2008 by chriswong in Whatever It Takes, Guest Filmmaker Blog
What’s more interesting in a documentary? A story about one person or many? If you capture the lives of four or five individuals, it seems like you would have an interesting mix of narrative threads to follow. But if you follow just one person around, you might not get enough action to fill out your film.
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MIGHTY WARRIORS OF COMEDY by Sung H. Kim
Posted October 31, 2007 by michella in Featured
Look out for MIGHTY WARRIORS OF COMEDY on PBS in January 2008. Hailed as one of the most devastatingly funny comedy troupes of the past decade, the 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors are an audacious Asian American sketch comedy group from San Francisco. Their material tackles socio-political issues with a hilarious combination of irreverence and seriousness, [...]
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NEW YEAR BABY Premiering on Independent Lens
Posted by michella in On Public Television
Born in a Thai refugee camp on Cambodian New Year, filmmaker Socheata Poeuv grew up in the United States never knowing that her family had survived the Khmer Rouge genocide.
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OUT OF THE POISON TREE on Public Television February 2008
Posted by michella in On Public Television
An American survivor of the Cambodian genocide hopes to unlock the mystery of her father’s disappearance in 1975.
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A DREAM IN DOUBT Premiering on Independent Lens in May 2008
Posted by michella in On Public Television
America’s first post-9/11 hate crime murder punctuated a growing wave of violence in retaliation for the terror attacks.
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OH, SAIGON Premiering on PBS in May 2008
Posted by michella in On Public Television
A Vietnamese family attempts to resolve its divided past when three brothers, one capitalist, one communist, one anti-war, who fought against each other in the Vietnam War meet again after decades and confront their differences. Meanwhile, two first-generation Vietnamese American sisters try to reconcile a difficult past that altered the course of their lives.
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UNNATURAL CAUSES airs on KQED this Thursday
Posted March 26, 2008 by rsotelo in On Public Television
A four-hour documentary series exploring our socio-economic and racial inequities in health. Airing four consecutive Thursdays at 10:00pm, March 27 to April 17, 2008.
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SIKHS IN AMERICA on PBS in May 2008
Posted March 5, 2008 by rsotelo in On Public Television
SIKHS IN AMERICA is a half hour documentary profiling the Sikh community in the United States. The program takes an in-depth look inside the Sikh community with its religious and cultural practices, social and family traditions, and economic and work life.
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LITTLE MANILA on PBS May 2008
Posted by rsotelo in On Public Television
LITTLE MANILA: Filipinos in California’s Heartland tells the immigrant story as Filipinos experienced it.
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