BLOCK 2 Out and About – Celebrating voices from the LGBTQ community – 1hr 41min
UNSPOKEN is the collective outpouring of six queer and trans Asian Americans as they grapple with their queerness and consider what family acceptance might look like.
The interviewees hail from across the Asian diaspora—from Sri Lanka and Myanmar to China and South Korea. Some are not yet out to their parents, and this film is their way of doing so. Some have tried to start conversations around their queerness, only to meet sustained denial. Others simply cannot communicate in the same language as their migrant families.
In this film, they all share what they would say if one day they woke up and their families’ generational, cultural, and language barriers were gone.
- Runtime17 min 7 sec
- LanguageEnglish
- CountryUnited States
- NoteNew York, NY; Director Biography - Patrick G. Lee A275afc2e7 headshot Patrick G. Lee (he/they) is a queer Korean American documentary filmmaker, writer, and community organizer. Trained as a journalist, Patrick believes in storytelling as a means to foster community resilience and move people to action. He's made films about Asian American coming out stories, LGBTQ self-representation, and queer Asian history. His reporting has appeared in Mother Jones, ProPublica, The Atlantic, CNN.com, and more. In 2018, Patrick helped organize KQTcon, the first national Korean queer and trans conference in the US. His favorite snack is kongjang (soy-braised black beans). Director Statement UNSPOKEN was inspired by the filmmaker’s own experience coming out to his immigrant parents. “I realized I didn’t have any language, either in Korean or English, to talk about being queer with my parents in a way that we would all understand,” said Patrick G. Lee, the filmmaker and a queer Korean American. “So I ended up writing a letter to them in English and asking friends to help translate it into Korean, in the hopes that my parents would read it and start to understand more of who I am.” The film comes at a critical cultural and political moment for marginalized communities: Given rising levels of hate violence, intolerance, and prejudice fueled by regressive nationalist movements around the globe, it’s incredibly important for queer and trans people of color to find affirmation within their families and home communities. UNSPOKEN creates an avenue to help build LGBTQ acceptance within Asian immigrant enclaves, on behalf of the more than 325,000 LGBTQ Asian Pacific Islander people in the U.S. (source: The Williams Institute). The 17-minute film will be screened at LGBTQ and Asian community events throughout the U.S. and across the world as a part of coming out workshops and family acceptance support groups. “This film represents the power of independent media to address diverse representation and bring often marginalized voices forward,” said JT Takagi, the Executive Director of Third World Newsreel. “TWN's mission is to support progressive, grassroots projects like these that speak to the experiences of communities of color.”
- DirectorPatrick Lee
BLOCK 2 Out and About – Celebrating voices from the LGBTQ community – 1hr 41min
UNSPOKEN is the collective outpouring of six queer and trans Asian Americans as they grapple with their queerness and consider what family acceptance might look like.
The interviewees hail from across the Asian diaspora—from Sri Lanka and Myanmar to China and South Korea. Some are not yet out to their parents, and this film is their way of doing so. Some have tried to start conversations around their queerness, only to meet sustained denial. Others simply cannot communicate in the same language as their migrant families.
In this film, they all share what they would say if one day they woke up and their families’ generational, cultural, and language barriers were gone.
- Runtime17 min 7 sec
- LanguageEnglish
- CountryUnited States
- NoteNew York, NY; Director Biography - Patrick G. Lee A275afc2e7 headshot Patrick G. Lee (he/they) is a queer Korean American documentary filmmaker, writer, and community organizer. Trained as a journalist, Patrick believes in storytelling as a means to foster community resilience and move people to action. He's made films about Asian American coming out stories, LGBTQ self-representation, and queer Asian history. His reporting has appeared in Mother Jones, ProPublica, The Atlantic, CNN.com, and more. In 2018, Patrick helped organize KQTcon, the first national Korean queer and trans conference in the US. His favorite snack is kongjang (soy-braised black beans). Director Statement UNSPOKEN was inspired by the filmmaker’s own experience coming out to his immigrant parents. “I realized I didn’t have any language, either in Korean or English, to talk about being queer with my parents in a way that we would all understand,” said Patrick G. Lee, the filmmaker and a queer Korean American. “So I ended up writing a letter to them in English and asking friends to help translate it into Korean, in the hopes that my parents would read it and start to understand more of who I am.” The film comes at a critical cultural and political moment for marginalized communities: Given rising levels of hate violence, intolerance, and prejudice fueled by regressive nationalist movements around the globe, it’s incredibly important for queer and trans people of color to find affirmation within their families and home communities. UNSPOKEN creates an avenue to help build LGBTQ acceptance within Asian immigrant enclaves, on behalf of the more than 325,000 LGBTQ Asian Pacific Islander people in the U.S. (source: The Williams Institute). The 17-minute film will be screened at LGBTQ and Asian community events throughout the U.S. and across the world as a part of coming out workshops and family acceptance support groups. “This film represents the power of independent media to address diverse representation and bring often marginalized voices forward,” said JT Takagi, the Executive Director of Third World Newsreel. “TWN's mission is to support progressive, grassroots projects like these that speak to the experiences of communities of color.”
- DirectorPatrick Lee