No matter what stage of life you are in there is always time to change your path. This collection of narratives and documentaries follow a variety of stories involving the process of discovering your life's direction. These films are contemplative in how they examine the emotions behind feeling lost and finding your way.This screening features 8 films. Toggle between film descriptions by scrolling and clicking on the buttons on the top right.

Ben, an ambitious Asian-American man shaped by his father’s immigrant experience, is visited by a familiar face on his way to the top. Insightful, poignant and beautifully observed. Director Biography -&nbsp;Jackie Bao <a href="https://filmfreeway-production-storage-01-connector.filmfreeway.com/press_kits/headshots/002/687/113/original/8bd2ff1f94-headshot.jpg?1710415138" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://filmfreeway-production-storage-01-connector.filmfreeway.com/press_kits/headshots/002/687/113/thumb/8bd2ff1f94-headshot.jpg?1710415138" width="145" style="border: none; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; margin: 0px 1em 1em 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle; display: inline; height: auto; max-width: 100%; position: relative; float: left;"></a>Jackie is a Taiwanese-American visual filmmaker born and raised in Los Angeles. She is drawn towards highlighting experiences of connection and visualizing emotions to tell the story. She attended Bard College and American Film Institute. Director Statement Just Kids is an exploration of my personal and observed experience with intergenerational trauma. Thich Nhat Hanh wrote, “My mother, my father, they are in me. And when I look, I see myself in them.” The trauma of immigration, the lacks and fears of one generation, inherited by another, and preserved into a mentality of never having enough, never being enough. An invisible conversation linking generations. I wanted to find a way of healing the inner child within myself, within my father, and within my community. And at the least, of representing those conversations alongside the dreams and visions of Asian American identity I’ve felt but haven’t seen.

Just Kids

An emotional family drama centered on a young Japanese American who returns to Japan, his childhood home, to reunite with his estranged mother, uncle, and grandmother. Upon arriving, he learns that his beloved grandmother has recently passed away. As he grapples with reconnecting with his family and adapting to the changes in his former home, he must decide whether to hold onto cherished memories or confront the painful reality of the present. Director Biography -&nbsp;Oliver William Staton<img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/eventive-static/c934a1f17a64de913daf83540f7f813b.jpg" width="203" style="display: inline; float: left; margin: 0px 1em 1em 0px;">Oliver William Staton is a filmmaker born in Japan and raised in the United States. He comes from an engineering background where he worked for companies including Tesla and General Electric. In 2019, he switched career paths to further develop his skills in writing, directing, and producing. He recently graduated with an MA in Filmmaking from London Film School. His primary interest is rooted in family dramas with cross-cultural struggles with an emphasis on those experienced through an Asian American perspective. Director Statement﻿As a Japanese American, my perspective is neither one culture nor the other but rather a tangled hybrid. The search for identity is rooted in who I am. There is beauty in having a diverse heritage, but the flip side of spending time in one place is that it requires not being in the other. Without the renewal of lived experiences, memory can outlive and even overtake reality. "Places We Knew" was created to question the power of memory versus lived experience when forming identity. The film attempts to stir the difficult feeling of loss to a once familiar place.

Places We Knew

Ayano, Japanese migrant worker faces reality of living in a foreign land. She tries to seek a way to stay and live in Canada. Director Biography -&nbsp;Hiromu Yamawaki <a href="https://filmfreeway-production-storage-01-connector.filmfreeway.com/press_kits/headshots/002/775/748/original/f4eec7dfbd-headshot.jpg?1715712685" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://filmfreeway-production-storage-01-connector.filmfreeway.com/press_kits/headshots/002/775/748/thumb/f4eec7dfbd-headshot.jpg?1715712685" width="97" style="border: none; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; margin: 0px 1em 1em 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle; display: inline; height: auto; max-width: 100%; position: relative; float: left;"></a>Hiromu is a writer/director based in Vancouver, he focuses on making a story about intercultural experiences in multiple languages. He was born and raised in Tottori, Japan. He has background in Film studies at Carleton University and Film Production at Vancouver Film School. His primary interest is to make Asian representation happen both on screen and behind the camera.

Counting Days

A Nigerian-born football player with California roots, tries to keep his NFL dream alive in Japan, and undergoes a transformational experience that goes far beyond the game. Director Biography -&nbsp;Trent CooperTrent Cooper is a visionary filmmaker whose creativity and leadership have left an indelible mark on the world of sports storytelling.

Ikigai

An Indian-American retiree rediscovers his passion for drawing as he navigates the transition into retirement. Director - Yuta Yamaguchi<img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/eventive-static/d61c08d34e28dbecfde9e09e04f7818c.jpg" width="140" style="display: inline; float: left; margin: 0px 1em 1em 0px;">Yuta Yamaguchi is an award-winning director, cinematographer, and editor in Austin, TX. Yuta's filmography includes films that have screened at Cannes, Sundance, SXSW, and HBO. Yuta was lauded by Indiewire for his, “striking visual work” on Ya'Ke Smith's Wolf, which premiered at SXSW and won the Panavision Best Texas Feature Film Award at the Dallas International Film Festival. Winner of numerous ADDY’s, Yuta has worked with clients such as DJI, Dell, HBO, MTV, McDonald's, and Amazon. Yuta also served as the Associate Producer on August Evening, which won the John Cassavetes Award at the Independent Spirit Awards. Bilingual in English and Japanese, Yuta is a graduate of the Radio-Television-Film program at the University of Texas.

still drawing

A young Chamoru woman contemplates the inherited burden of collective loss and healing while bearing a chenchulu (group-fishing net) in her hair. Director Biography -&nbsp;Alfred Bordallo<img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/eventive-static/d9cbede14044d89cde23e7b9b9a37538.jpg" width="204" style="display: inline; float: left; margin: 0px 1em 1em 0px;">Alfred Bordallo (b. 1999) is a CHamoru visual artist from Guåhan currently based in Los Angeles. His work focuses on recollecting and honoring the fragmented and, more importantly, repurposed facets of Chamoru identity through the analog mediums of photography and video. Bordallo’s self-taught practice began in 2018 while attending the University of Southern California, and has since grown into editorial shoots for fashion and music, live-visual (VJ) sets accompanied with lo-fi hip-hop, and to video art installations that interrogate CHamoru identity within the context of indigineity, diaspora, and imperialism. Director Statement﻿Para I Onra; A love letter to our CHamoru matriarchs.

DAUGHTER OF GUAM

A struggling actor has returned home to Hawai'i, where a princess impersonator gig lands her at the mansion of her high school nemesis. Inside the world of a girl who has it all, she wonders: what if life hasn't actually turned out so "happily ever after"?&nbsp; Director Biography -&nbsp;Taylor Gruver <a href="https://filmfreeway-production-storage-01-connector.filmfreeway.com/press_kits/headshots/002/569/880/original/88caf07027-headshot.jpg?1701423793" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://filmfreeway-production-storage-01-connector.filmfreeway.com/press_kits/headshots/002/569/880/thumb/88caf07027-headshot.jpg?1701423793" width="98" style="border: none; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; margin: 0px 1em 1em 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle; display: inline; height: auto; max-width: 100%; position: relative; float: left;"></a>Taylor Gruver is a freelance filmmaker with experience in multiple areas of filmmaking including sound design, editing, writing, directing, and producing. After serving in the United States Coast Guard from 2009 to 2016, Taylor attended film school at City College of San Francisco. She received an Associates in Cinema Production and began working as a sound effects editor and assistant editor in the Bay Area. Her directorial debut short film Highway 1 won multiple awards in festivals across the country. Taylor currently lives on Oahu and works across all aspects of production and post-production for commercials, television and feature films. Director Statement “Fair” is a film that anybody who returns to their hometown can relate to. Elizabeth's script is clever, funny, and heartfelt. It beautifully captures how easy it is to fall into the comparison trap and question where you are in life. But the truth is, life’s a journey. The race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself. It was an honor to work with such an incredible cast and crew to tell this story.

Fair

The video captures the essence of solitude and introspection, as Fuentes' soulful performance is complemented by the vast, open Central Oregon landscape. Artist Biography -&nbsp;Dennis Fuentes <a href="https://filmfreeway-production-storage-01-connector.filmfreeway.com/press_kits/headshots/002/844/634/original/8d3563ad69-headshot.jpg?1722321580" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://filmfreeway-production-storage-01-connector.filmfreeway.com/press_kits/headshots/002/844/634/thumb/8d3563ad69-headshot.jpg?1722321580" width="166" style="border: none; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; margin: 0px 1em 1em 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle; display: inline; height: auto; max-width: 100%; position: relative; float: left;"></a>Hello. My name is Dennis Fuentes. I am a singer-songwriter-actor from Oak Park, IL. But from September 2019 to October 2020, I was a proud and happy Oregonian!After 27 years of living in the Midwest, I moved to Oregon (to the Portland area) with the intent of making it my forever home. However, my tenure in the state was short-lived due to the COVID-19 pandemic (that’s a long story for another time!). Despite the short stay, my time here left a deep impression on my heart and imagination. So much so that after returning to the Chicagoland area and reuniting with my band to record new music, I felt inspired to finally pursue a long-held dream and create my first-ever music video. This led me to return “home” to Oregon to shoot it.The song "Middle of Nowhere" was released to streaming platforms in the summer of 2024. The song is set in the desert, and while recording it, vivid memories of my adventures in Central Oregon filled my mind. I recalled exploring Crater Lake National Park on my birthday, listening to the distant howls of coyotes at night from my campground near Smith Rock State Park, and hiking the trails along the Deschutes River. So, in June 2024, I returned “home” to Oregon and collaborated with Shields Films of Portland to shoot and co-produce the video. When you watch it, you’re witnessing not just a performance, but the genuine, pure joy of making my first film and the feeling of coming "home" once again.I hope you enjoy my song and my first foray into being a filmmaker. Director Biography - Travis Shields Travis Shields is a seasoned filmmaker with a deep-rooted love for the Pacific Northwest. His journey began in the Bay Area, where his filmmaking aspirations took flight. Honing his craft at Washington State University, Travis fell under the spell of the region’s natural beauty, a passion that continues to inspire his work today.Now based in Portland, Oregon, Travis leads a talented team of creative professionals at Shields Films. His dedication to excellence has been recognized with five Telly Awards, a testament to his commitment to crafting impactful visual experiences. Beyond directing captivating projects, Travis shares his expertise through training and consulting services, empowering others to become confident storytellers themselves

Middle of Nowhere

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Shorts Program: Finding Your Path

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