*Updated with CAAMFest 2017 Audience Award Winner!
Congratulations to all of the 2017 CAAMFest Award Winners!
COMCAST NARRATIVE AWARD
WEXFORD PLAZA | DIR. JOYCE WONG
Jury Comments:
Wexford Plaza is a quirky and off beat comedy that manages to balance a critique of mundane suburban culture with poetic beauty. With a well rounded portrayal of gender, race and sexuality, director and writer Joyce Wong shows off her craft as an impressive story teller with this nuanced, witty and moving film. We are very pleased to award the Comcast Narrative Competition to Joyce Wong.
Honorable Mention: GOOK | DIR. JUSTIN CHON
Jury Comments:
Bold, honest, and compelling in its storytelling, Gook offers an early 1990’s nostalgia trip. A nuanced and complex narrative of a Korean American experience, this film is shockingly present and relevant today, 25 years after Rodney King.
DOCUMENTARY AWARD
RANDOM ACTS OF LEGACY |DIR. ALI KAZIMI
Jury Comments:
Through Ali Kazimi’s deft command of the filmmaking language, a decaying collection of home movies is turned to an evocative, essential document of an experience rarely seen or heard from — a middle class Chinese American family in a 1930’s America. Ali’s creative design and approach enabled Silas Fung’s footage that’s personal, unique and specific, illuminate and comment on the universal human condition. For it’s creative and evocative manner of giving nuance to our understanding of ourselves, others, and the world we live in, we give CAAMFest’s Best Documentary award to Ali Kazimi’s Random Acts of Legacy.
Honorable Mention: FINDING KUKAN | DIR. ROBIN LUNG
Jury Comments:
There are the films we pick and the films that pick us. Li Ling-Ai and Kukan clearly picked Robin Lung to make Finding Kukan. In telling the story of Li Ling-Ai and her extraordinary determination and vision in making the 1941 Academy Award-winning documentary Kukan, Robin has exhumed this important film and places its producer in her rightful place of authorship — a place that was denied Li Ling-Ai at the time of Kukan‘s release. Both this story and this film have much to tell us about gender, race, power, and the way that our society worked then and works now.
AT&T STUDENT AWARDS
BASHA MAN | DIR. DANIEL CHEIN
ESCAPING AGRA |DIR. PALLAVI SOMUSETTY
FANNY PACK | DIR. UTTERA SINGH
LONI DING AWARD FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE DOCUMENTARY
IT IS WHAT IT IS | DIR. CYRUS TABAR
The San Francisco Film Critics Circle Award recognizes the commitment, artistry and vision of Shumin Liu and his ambitious family drama THE FAMILY. It’s remarkable that such a bold production is the multi-talented filmmaker’s first film. While a four-and-a-half hour running time undoubtedly qualifies it as an epic, THE FAMILY is foremost an intimate human drama about an elderly couple adjusting to a new China and changes in their family dynamics. Our hope is this SFFCC Award will encourage a broader audience to embark on this long, but utterly rewarding cinematic journey.
AUDIENCE AWARD
GOOK (Narrative Feature Winner) | Dir. Justin Chon
MIXED MATCH (Documentary Feature Winner) | Dir. Jeff Chiba Stearns
2016-2017 CAAM MEDIA FUND AWARDS
See full list here.
CAAMFEST AWARDS & JURY MEMBERS
COMCAST NARRATIVE COMPETITION
The Comcast Narrative Competition Award highlights the diversity and ingenuity of modern cinema and recognizes excellence in narrative filmmaking.
DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION
The Documentary Competition showcases a dynamic selection of films that fearlessly capture the challenging reality and surprising beauty inherent in the human experience.
AT&T STUDENT FILM AWARD
Recognizing promising voices in Asian and Asian American media, the AT&T Student Film Award is presented to college students who exemplify the voice of a new generation.
Co-sponsored by Asian Pacific Islanders for Professional & Community Advancement (APCA) Northern California, a 510(c)(3) nonprofit organization focused on the representation of Asian Pacific Islanders employed by AT&T Inc. and its wholly owned subsidiaries.
LONI DING AWARD
The Loni Ding Award for Social Justice Documentary recognizes the film and filmmaker that most reflect the passions of late TV producer Loni Ding. Ding devoted her life to advocacy and played a key role in the founding of several public media organizations, including CAAM.
SF FILM CRITICS AWARD
In partnership with the San Francisco Film Critics Circle, we proudly celebrate cinematic achievements in global cinema. Award winners are selected by members of the San Francisco Film Critics Circle, a nonprofit service organization of Bay Area film critics, reviewers, writers, authors and editors.
AUDIENCE AWARD
The Audience Award lets you, our audience, honor your festival favorite. Vote for the narrative that touched your heart or the most eye-opening documentary, and give the directors much-deserved recognition.
COMCAST NARRATIVE JURY
Abby Chen
Abby Chen is the Curator and Artistic Director for the Chinese Culture Foundation. She has more than 10 years of experience curating visual arts, film, and performing arts programs. She is responsible for the Foundation’s artistic vision, planning, and management, including exhibition, public art, collection, communication, publication, and strategic partnerships. Abby holds an MA in Visual and Critical Studies from the California College of the Arts. Tri-lingual in Mandarin, Cantonese and English, she is a regular lecturer on contemporary Chinese art. Her writings were published on Yishu, Art China, Chinese Photography, Dong Fang Daily, and numerous catalogs. She was also the 2012 National Endowment for Humanity Summer Scholar.
Ivan Jaigirdar
Along with being Co-Founder and Executive Director of 3rd i South Asian Films, Ivan Jaigirdar is the the Artistic director of San Francisco International South Asian Film Festival and the Bollyhood Cafe. Prior to founding 3rd i, Jaigirdar served as Creative Director and Programmer at Artist Television Access, and has helped curate programs for numerous festivals including San Francisco International, Asian American Film Festival, Madcat International Women’s Film Festival, the Black Film Festival, and NoisePop.
Marc Mayer
Marc Mayer is the senior educator of contemporary art at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco where he focuses on inserting contemporary art programming, performance, and artist projects into the context of historical, ethnically-specific museum. He initiated the Artists Drawing Club in 2013 and curates this on-going program series which invites artists, predominantly local Asian American artists to use the museum as a project platform to draw connections between ideas, art, culture, and time. Previously he has worked at Art21, the New Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art.
DOCUMENTARY JURY
Celine Parreñas Shimizu
An award-winning film scholar and filmmaker, Celine Parreñas Shimizu is Full Professor of Cinema at San Francisco State University. Her books are The Feminist Porn Book (2013), Strait- jacket Sexualities (2012) and The Hypersexuality of Race (2007).
Carmen Vicencio
Carmen is in charge of American Documentary’s new 26-episode program, America ReFramed. Apart from working closely with the executive producers in programming the year round series, she oversees licensing, production, post production and administration of the show. Discovering filmmaking in college, Carmen’s built a career in Asia and New York as Assistant Director, Post Production Supervisor, Line Producer, Producer and Director of award-winning short and long-form content for film, TV and digital media. She is a member of the Producers Guild of America, and Co-Chair of its Diversity Committee.
Noland Walker
Noland Walker is Senior Content Director at ITVS. Prior to joining ITVS, Walker worked with the Boston-based organization AIR, serving as Executive Editor of Localore, an innovative project designed to bring fresh talent, ideas and energy to public media through collaborative production partnerships between producers and local public radio and TV stations.
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