profiles of featured storytellers for CAAM’s 40 anniversary
Join, renew, or gift a CAAM Sustaining membership by December 31, 2020 and receive an exclusive set of CAAM40 Storytellers prints. Membership is a great present to anyone who is a filmmaker or aspiring filmmaker or who simply appreciates compelling Asian American stories.
“Staying in the South is an opportunity to be part of a wave of Southern storytellers coming from a perspective that hasn’t been seen much on the national level. “
“I always grew up knowing that Asian Americans made films, and could make film, and there was a lot of them making films.”
Filmmaker Grace Lee has explored topics as varied as politics, food, zombies, and even other women who share her name. The thread that ties…
“I would have done an album a disservice if I had this project talking about the Filipino American experience and not include elements of Filipino language.”
“I’m able to enter and ride that privilege for access (to) certain spaces. You know, so when characters in the film, talk about Blacks, it is clear that they don’t believe that the person they’re talking to is Black.”
“What I care about is bringing empathy to us, so all my films have a very strong Asian element.”
“I learned a lot about the power of centering one’s voice and experience in a work. And also about how hard it can be to do so.”
“It’s going to be a real challenge, but you’re going to make it work. I’d like to tell my 25-year-old self that it’s going to be a bumpy ride, but you’re going to make it out.”
“This was a time when there weren’t iPhones or anything that kept me entertained, so I would sketch all day on the back of these invoices. I would have piles and piles of papers and these pens. Come to think of it now, these were like storyboards. In a way, because my parents made me work at their small business, I had to daydream, and it fueled my imagination.”
“I grew up in the generation of vloggers and YouTubers and people navigating how to use editing software. That’s really how I got my start in hands-on filmmaking.”
“My work focuses on women, whether they are outsiders or those who are trying on the mantle of where they don’t usually fit”