On this edition of Your Call, we’re discussing this year’s Center for Asian American Media Film Festival (CAAMFest), which runs today through May 23. This year’s festival features over 50 events, including screenings, panels, and live performances. This is an especially important year given the rise of anti-Asian violence throughout the pandemic.
We'll discuss this year's highlights, including Manzanar, Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust, a beautiful documentary that weaves together memories of intergenerational women. Native Americans, Japanese American World War II incarcerees, and environmentalists form an unexpected alliance to defend their land and water from the powerful Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.
Guests:
Masashi Niwano, festival and exhibition director at the Center for Asian American Media
Ann Kaneko, director and producer of Manzanar, Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust, Media Studies teacher at Pitzer College, and former Fulbright and Japan Foundation Artist fellow
Jin Yoo-Kim, producer of Manzanar, Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust, 2020-2021 Sundance creative producer’s fellow, and 2017 Firelight Media Impact Producing Fellow
Web Resources:
Manzanar Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust screens online on May 16 at 6pm
San Francisco Chronicle: CAAMFest 2021 celebrates cinema and brings light to the COVID era
San Francisco Chronicle: Hollywood wouldn’t cast a Filipino American as a leading man. So Dante Basco made his own movie
