Hawaiian microbiologist Kiana Frank takes us to a sacred fish pond and explains how traditional knowledge and microbiology can work together to help us understand how to care for and manage the land. Director Biography -&nbsp;Ruth Lichtman, Sharon ShattuckRUTH LICHTMAN is a director and producer of film, audio, and theater. Her Emmy-nominated films have appeared in numerous film festivals and media outlets including The Atlantic, The Huffington Post and The New York Times. You may have seen her animations in global ad campaigns for Apple Music and Amazon Music. At Penguin Random House, Ruth has directed audiobooks with narrators including Julianne Moore, Miranda July, Phoebe Robinson and Hannah Gadsby and has received multiple Audie Award nominations. Ruth has also produced a number of podcasts, including genre-breaking Limetown and Crooked Media’s The Wilderness, a podcast investigating the Democratic Party in 2016, which culminated with an interview of President Barack Obama. Ruth wrote and directed “Theodore the Adorable,” a short play which ran at New York City’s Dixon Place and told the story of a self-loathing rabbit on a quest to find his (hot pink and severed) foot.SHARON SHATTUCK is a documentary filmmaker and podcast host. PICTURE A SCIENTIST (2020), about women scientists fighting sexual harassment, was nominated for a 2022 News &amp; Documentary EMMY and was distributed on PBS (NOVA) and Netflix. FROM THIS DAY FORWARD (2015), an autobiography about growing up with a transgender parent, was a New York Times Critic's Pick and was distributed on PBS (POV), Netflix, SundanceNow, Amazon, and iTunes. She's the cohost of the Spotify podcast CONVICTION: AMERICAN PANIC, the co-creator of the EMMY-nominated New York Times Op Docs short film series ANIMATED LIFE, and a member of the 2021 cohort of DOC NYC's 40 under 40 initiative.

Decoding Ancestral Knowledge

Many Chinese family immigration stories are entwined within the United States exclusion era. Some of the laws almost entirely banned Chinese from entering the country. Wing and Young Shee Leong implemented complicated measures in order to start their life in the United States. Their story was a secret until now. Director -&nbsp;Patty Fong<img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/eventive-static/7e0aa1d0b8006881b431b706f8d43207.jpg" width="180">Patty Fong became a film maker by accident. After attending a local festival, she was inspired to memorialize her family history in shorts for her children. She soon realized her ancestors' stories were often shared stories. Patty is honored to be a Digital Histories fellow with Visual Communications, Los Angeles. This is her fifth short film.﻿

Stories Told, Secrets Kept

Unpacking Immigration explores the lives of Punjabi immigrant meatpackers whose unseen and undervalued work bridges the crucial missing steps in “the farm to table” concept in food production. This short film, written and directed by Harleen Kaur Bal, shares the story of a longtime Punjabi Sikh meatpacker in California’s Central Valley. The film traces his migration journey, the human toll of meatpacking work, and the fraught notions of home and belonging for working-class immigrants and their families in the “land of opportunity.” Director Biography -&nbsp;Harleen Kaur Bal<img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/eventive-static/6334ce22d292537f8135a6ee8feeb580.jpg" width="217">Harleen Kaur Bal is a PhD student of sociocultural anthropology at the University of California, Davis. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on the intersection of work and wellbeing in relation to the South Asian diaspora, particularly intergenerational Punjabis. Her film, Unpacking Immigration, reflects her multifaceted research background by bridging several themes: food production, migration, and labor within capitalism. Harleen believes film and creative multimedia art are powerful community tools that make academic topics more publicly accessible.

Unpacking Immigration

The story of one man‚Äôs legal battle to regain American citizenship for more than 5,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry forced to renounce amidst turmoil and violence at the Tule Lake Segregation Center, considered the worst of America‚Äôs ten WWII concentration camps. It took attorney Wayne M. Collins more than 23 years to restore citizenship for nearly all of them. Director Biography -&nbsp;Sharon Yamato<img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/eventive-static/7965b91d30e2a0602957e9c266741534.jpg" width="248">Sharon Yamato is a writer/filmmaker who wrote, produced and directed "Out of Infamy: Michi Nishiura Weglyn," awarded the Special Jury Mention at the Tribeca Film Festival. She also wrote and co- directed the award-winning documentary, "A Flicker in Eternity," based on the diary and letters of WWII veteran Stanley Hayami, and served as creative consultant on "A Life in Pieces," the virtual reality version of the Hayami story, also featured at the 2022 Tribeca Festival. She wrote, directed and produced "Moving Walls," a story about what happened to the barracks at the Heart Mountain concentration camp, and is the author of the accompanying book, "Moving Walls: Preserving the Barracks of America’s Concentration Camps.”

One Fighting Irishman

A Japanese American incarcerated on a reservation finds a friend in a Mohave Indian who helps him fight for civil rights. Director Biography - Marlene Shigekawa<img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/eventive-static/817f276cd9a0d4a2802f8388cfddd0e8.jpg" width="217">An independent film director, producer, and writer, Marlene Shigekawa specializes in creative projects that give voice to marginalized communities and the need for social justice. She was the co-director and executive producer for the feature documentary film, For the Sake of the Children, which captures the voices of four generations of descendants from Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II. It has screened throughout the U.S. and in British Columbia. Her short narrative film, The Blue Jay, is drawn from her family’s incarceration at the Poston Concentration Camp located on a reservation. It’s based on her feature script, Hawk Dreamer, about a brotherhood between Japanese American and Native American characters. Shigekawa hopes to bring authentic voices and more diversity to the screen through her work, both documentary and narrative films that feature Asian Americans As the Executive Director for the Poston Community Alliance, she has worked with the tribal community for 20 years in preserving the Poston Incarceration Site and has organized annual Poston Pilgrimages with 250 attendees. She is the author of children’s books - Blue Jay in the Desert and Welcome Home Swallows - about a Japanese American family and has made book presentations in schools throughout the U.S.

The Blue Jay

Documentary of a Japanese immigrant‚Äôs journey to Vancouver, Canada and the French front lines of WWI.

Citizen Soldier

Ancient ties and connections across generations are explored in these reflections on ancestry. Director -&nbsp;Emilio J. Virata Jr.<img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/eventive-static/f10129e13e9dbf719f2370e9e16f4f89.jpg" width="258">Educator, activist, and organizer Emilio J. Virata, Jr. spent over 30 years pushing back against the restrictive structures of higher education administration. He served as Director of Asian Pacific Student Programs at Loyola Marymount University and UC Riverside, and completed his sojourn through higher education as Assistant Dean of Students. An American born Pinoy, he has wrestled with finding identity while straddling two cultures. In his retirement years he seeks ways to nurture creativity in his life. He writes. He plays music. He makes films. He lets his imagination run wild. He happily plays with his grandchildren, watching them run and laugh, and have a great ol’ time.﻿He shares his stories, that they might inspire some joy, or challenge some thinking, or that they might simply provide a momentary distraction from life’s daily routines.

Ancestors

United States of America

Discovering Untold Stories

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Thank&nbsp;you&nbsp;for your generous donation to the Silicon Valley Asian Pacific FilmFest, a production of CATS (Contemporary Asian Theater Scene), a non profit 501c3. EIN: 77-0402633 Thank&nbsp;You,Silicon Valley Asian Pacific FilmFest<a href="https://www.svapfilmfest.org" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.svapfilmfest.org</a>

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