Visual Communications

In the face of AAPI violence, an intergenerational coalition of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, People of Color organizers come together to organize a march across historic Washington Heights and Harlem, as a continuation of the historic and radical Black and Asian solidarity tradition.

The film looks back at the life of a man named Oda and other Japanese Americans through the decades as they face great challenges and joys living in the United States.

For all intents and purposes, 2015 was seemingly a banner year for singer/songwriter Bobby Choy (aka Big Phony). His melodic and quiet songs had garnered him a following as he performs at SXSW while also starring in his first feature film. However, returning back to the States from living abroad in S. Korea - has he made the right decisions in life, professionally and personally? Is he his own worst enemy?

An aspiring social worker, Pedro must confront political restrictions as a blind, undocumented immigrant to get his college degree and support his family. But when attaining his dreams leads to new and unexpected challenges, what will Pedro do?

This important tribute to the issei (first generation Japanese Americans) integrates the stories of three people who describe a collective history through their personal memories.

1935 Los Angeles, community leader Sei Fujii uncovers the corrupt activities of his community's underground mafia. He must choose between saving the face of his deteriorating community and confronting the issues head on through his newspaper. Based on a true story.

After Dom begins having suspicions about his wife, he goes to the seemingly wrong person for advice, leading him down a rabbit hole of drug fueled paranoia that threatens his mind, his heart, and his groin.

Modern kite maker Tom Joe seeks to preserve the craft of kite making as well as the traditional Asian folklore behind it. Alan Takemoto illustrates Tom Joe’s tales of the Polynesian fish kite made from leaves and branches to fool fish; the Chinese general whose trapped army fashioned a fighting kite; and Shirone, the “kite crazy town” in Japan where 20-foot fighting kites duel in magnificent matches. Children will be inspired to try making these kites.

A young woman contends with her role as a Daughter of Guam. Contemplating the inherited burden of her island’s collective loss, the Daughter of Guam learns to navigate her responsibility to her island’s collective healing.

A follow-up to the groundbreaking Visual Communications documentary OMAI FA'ATASI: SAMOA MO SAMOA, this fictionalized account of Vaitafe Futu, a gifted Samoan youth who travels from Pago Pago to pursue an education in Los Angeles offers a wholistic portrait of a newer Asian Pacific American community.

After the trigger of a hate crime, an undocumented Indian American convenience store clerk comes crashing into his subconscious as he grieves the passing of his father during an attempted border crossing.

Celebrates the music and influences of contemporary Asian American culture on Dan Kuramoto, June Okida Kuramoto, and Johnny Mori — three musicians who make up the core of the jazz fusion band Hiroshima. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with Visual Communications in 2011.

This documentary tells the story of the LGBTTI communities who have suffered persecution, prison and torture for their sexual condition under different military dictatorships in recent decades. The idea borns from the photographic and archival project for the recovery of the historical memory of the different LGBTTI communities in the world, a chapter of history too often hidden and forgotten. This first chapter is a journey around Spain, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, countries where the dictatorship has strongly marked the history of the LGBTTI community, oppressed by police regimes and social intolerance.

Raya loves makeup but her family does not. She’s torn between her secret dream of being a makeup artist and her family’s strict religious beliefs. In a nightmare, she receives a profound message from her Papua New Guinean ancestor who encourages her to look at her Indigenous culture for answers.

Documentary on the Los Angeles-based media arts group, Visual Communications. The one-hour film chronicles their first twenty years, 1970-1990, of producing media by and about Asian Pacific Americans.

In 1953, a young man in Los Angeles wrote to a young woman in St. Louis. The letters between the pen pals evolved into a courtship that spanned over four years.

This black-and-white documentary weaves scenes of Japanese American poet and professor Lawson Inada’s life with his writing. Titled after one of his poems, I TOLD YOU SO follows Inada to Fresno, California for a childhood reunion. Shots of his multicultural childhood neighborhood show downtown graffiti, bars, and the Nisei Barber Shop. Inada runs into his aunt, one of the subjects of his poems where she asks, “All this identity thing. What is it you’re looking for?” Inada’s answer is in his poem, “Nightsongs in Asian America” that addresses the active residence to World War II incarceration and his relationship with his son.

GRASSROOTS RISING, directed by Robert C. Winn, explores the re-emergence of Asian Pacific American labor activism in Los Angeles among people from all walks of life, from a Pilipino American domestic worker, a Chinese American laundry worker-turned-union activist, a Korean American restaurant waitress fighting wage theft, a group of Thai women forced to labor in an underground sweatshop, to Korean American and Mexican American grocery store workers fighting for safer working conditions. The film offers a moving tribute to the working class roots of the Asian American experience, focusing on the resurgence of grassroots political activism among the City of Angels’ Asian, Latino, and other working class families.

Inspired by the 1978 documentary “Omai Fa’atasi: Samoa Mo Samoa,” a teenage girl growing up in a strict Samoan household lives the same day everyday cooking, cleaning, and taking care of her siblings until she joins a community organization that helps her realize her full potential.

NA PUA O LAKA foregrounds the perpetuation of the Hawaiian culture in Southern California. Sissy Kaʻio is a kumu hula, or teacher of Hula, who both explains and demonstrates how to teach the Hula. The focus is on her male students, which harks back to the origins of the dance and breaks the stereotype of the hulas as mere exotic entertainment.