An ode to the dignity of overseas Filipino workers in Hong Kong They dance to celebrate. To remember. To forget. To take up space in a world that demands they give up their individuality in exchange for a meek, submissive existence. In Stefanos Tai’s film ...
‘Therapy Dogs’ and the blind ambition of youth
“Class of 2019, you’re graduating this year. And you know what? You should know the truth. We were never really a yearbook committee. Instead, we’re gonna make our own secret movie, which you all get to see very, very soon. It’s the movie you deserve. The ...
‘The Chinatown Files’: An untold story we’ve all heard before.
Written By: Nathan Liu When you think of the “Red Scare,” what comes to mind? Is it Joseph McCarthy? Is it the Hollywood Blacklist? I’m guessing it’s not working-class Chinese immigrants and their children getting jailed, deported, and driven to suicide f ...
Asian/American documentary filmmaking and resistance: A conversation with Renee Tajima-Peña
Written By: Kano Umezaki Back in late June of 2021, I had the pleasure of speaking with documentary filmmaker and activist, Renee Tajima-Peña, about the PBS “Asian Americans” series, the origins of the Asian/American political film movement, and the s ...
Portrait of a revolutionary heart: NoCut Film Collective’s ‘A Rifle and a Bag’
Written By: Kano Umezaki This article may contain spoilers. At night, around the time the moon’s gaze is at its highest, three people sit around a fire. “Today was supposed to be my funeral,” one man says. Laughter follows, alo ...
Alex Liu searches for sex education and finds an opportunity for human connection in ‘A Sexplanation’
Written By: Aditya Sharma This article may contain spoilers. Growing up as a gay kid in the Bay Area, Alex Liu was fighting to understand his sexual identity. “Until I was 18 I was deathly afraid, so terrified of this part of m ...
What’s in a name? ‘Wuhan Wuhan’
Yung Chang humanizes a city in a pandemic Written By: Demi Guo This article may contain spoilers. There is no shortage of use of the word “Wuhan” now. Most people in the world have learned about it through headlines that signal ...
‘Bookmark 14’ takes an honest look at what it means to be a teenager
Written By: Jeremy Lim This article may contain spoilers. Adults love to wax poetic about their nostalgia associated with being a kid and kids love to talk about how they just want to grow up. But nobody thinks back fondly abou ...
Reimagining the archive: A review of ‘Cane Fire’ in conversation with Anthony Banua-Simon and Mike Vass
Written By: Kano Umezaki This article may contain spoilers. For decades, U.S. expansionists have branded Kaua’i as a land for leisure, primed with rich forests and vast shorelines. With its geopolitical alignment to the Asia-Pacific, Kaua’i also p ...