Inheritance – 2013 Loni Ding Award Winner

Inheritance (2012) is a personal documentary film that illuminates diasporic identity formation in the shadow of Iranian gender politics and the Islamic Revolution. Inside her mother’s home, the filmmaker excavates the detritus that cushioned her splintering family as they traversed the uneven terrains of Revolution, divorce and eventually, self-imposed exile.

Inheritance unfolds through a collage of images, forms, voices and eras. Faded footage of the polls where millions voted for an Islamic Republic, pipe in through a television in the U.S. thirty years later. Impressions of an absent father swirl amidst fragments of historical memory. The quotidian clangings of a family’s kitchen collide against the shrieks of a political system in turmoil.

Follow the filmmaker: @Aggie_Bazaz

Inheritance is the winner of the 2013 Loni Ding Award in Social Issue Documentary

CAAM is proud to announce the third annual Loni Ding Award winner and its prize of $1000 goes to Aggie Ebrahimi Bazaz and her short film INHERITANCE (played at CAAMFest 2013), which investigates what’s lost, gained and carried over in the process of diaspora.

Loni Ding (1931-2010) was a veteran independent television producer and university instructor. She devoted her life to advocacy and public service, and played a key role in the founding of several public media organizations, including the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM) and the Independent Television Service (ITVS). Her award-winning productions, which include Nisei Soldier (1984), The Color of Honor (1988), and Ancestors in the Americas (1997), were among the first to document early Asian immigrant histories. The Loni Ding Award was created in 2011 to honor the film and filmmaker that most reflects Loni’s passion and commitment.

Previous winners:

2012

Winner: MAKING NOISE IN SILENCE, Dir. Mina T. Sonn

2011

Winner: ONCE UPON A ROOFTOP, Dir. Sybil Wendler