December 5, 2018

Los Angeles

The Courage Under Fire Award from the International Documentary Association honors documentary filmmaker Stephen Maing, at the IDA's annual awards, December 8 in Los Angeles.

Maing is honored for his explosive documentary exposing the New York police department's racially discriminatory policing practices.

A class action suit by twelve minority whistleblower officers revealed the NYPD's practice of pressuring minority officers to issue predetermined numbers of arrests and summonses per month, often in communities of color it classified as 'high crime.'

Stephen Maing is an Emmy-nominated, Brooklyn-based filmmaker. His 2012 feature documentary, High Tech, Low Life, chronicled the gripping story of two of China's first dissident citizen-journalists fighting state-monitored censorship, and was broadcast nationally on PBS.  

His short film The Surrender, produced with Academy Award winner Laura Poitras, documented State Department intelligence analyst Stephen Kim's harsh prosecution under the Espionage Act, and was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Short Documentary.

He has directed numerous films for Time Magazine, The Nation, The New York Times, The Intercept, PBS and Field of Vision; his New York Times Op-Docs documentary, Hers to Lose, was awarded a World Press Photo Award for Long Features.

Maing is a Sundance Institute Fellow, a John Jay/Harry Frank Guggenheim Reporting Fellow, and an IDA Enterprise Documentary Fund grantee. His most recent film, Crime + Punishment, was filmed over four years and received a Special Jury Award for Social Impact Filmmaking at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival.

November 6, 2018

There's still a few hours left to VOTE. We hope you voted!

Unveiled at town hall honoring 50th anniversary of Chinese for Affirmative Action 

San Francisco Bay Area newscasters, editors, reporters, producers, podcasters, filmmakers and pioneer internet content creators came together to mark the emergence of Asian American journalists in mainstream news media where there none before 50 years ago. 

Updates! September 3, 2018

Its now the closing hour of the Labor Day weekend and Congratulations to "Crazy Rich Asians" crossing the $100 Million mark!

As of today, the movie is estimated to bring in $117 million for the North American box office making directoro Jon M. Chu's film the most successful Hollywood studio romantic comedy in nearly a decade. 

Keep buying tickets, keep going to see movies with diverse casts!

"Searching," starring John Cho is also a great movie! "Searching" is another must-see movie! 

============

Headline: Go See This Opening Weekend! CRAZY RICH ASIANS - August 15-19, 2018

August 14, 2018

Congratulations to the cast and creators of Crazy Rich Asians!

It’s been 25 years since the last movie by a major Hollywood studio to feature predominantly Asian Americans in leading roles, since The Joy Luck Club. #TheJoyLuckClub 

Make your ticket count! See Crazy Rich Asians now during opening weekend August 15 - August 19. Opening weekend box office ticket sales are critical barometers on how Hollywood studios will rank the financial success of this movie, as well as greenlighting future films with Asian Americans in lead roles.

Read the extensive Sunday, August 12 coverage by Los Angeles Times film reporter Jen Yamato, profiling fourteen members of Crazy Rich Asians cast and creators - click here. https://lat.ms/2MAARsN @LATimes

Crazy Rich Asians is a milestone for Asian American representation in a Hollywood movie. Alot is riding on the success of Crazy Rich Asians to help open doors for more Hollywood movies with diverse stories featuring Asian Americans in leading roles. Jen Yamato writes that despite 'increased calls for industry change in recent years, significant progress has not hit the big screen. According to an Annenberg study of the top 100 films of 2017 only 4.8% of movies featured a character...

August 14, 2018

Congratulations to the cast and creators of Crazy Rich Asians!

It’s been 25 years since the last movie by a major Hollywood studio to feature predominantly Asian Americans in leading roles, since The Joy Luck Club. #TheJoyLuckClub 

Make your ticket count! See Crazy Rich Asians now during opening weekend August 15 - August 19. Opening weekend box office ticket sales are critical barometers on how Hollywood studios will rank the financial success of this movie, as well as greenlighting future films with Asian Americans in lead roles.

Read the extensive Sunday, August 12 coverage by Los Angeles Times film reporter Jen Yamato, profiling fourteen members of Crazy Rich Asians cast and creators - click here. https://lat.ms/2MAARsN @LATimes

Crazy Rich Asians is a milestone for Asian American representation in a Hollywood movie. Alot is riding on the success of Crazy Rich Asians to help open doors for more Hollywood movies with diverse stories featuring Asian Americans in leading roles. Jen Yamato writes that despite 'increased calls for industry change in recent years, significant progress has not hit the big screen. According to an Annenberg study of the top 100 films of 2017 only 4.8% of movies featured a character of Asian descent with a speaking role." 

View interviews by Jim Ferguson with author Kevin Kwan, and actors Jimmy O. Yang and Gemma Chan of #CrazyRichAsians 

URL links:

Official Website: www.crazyrichasiansmovie.com 

Author Kevin Kwan: www.kevinkwanbooks.com 

Los Angeles Times coverage by film reporter Jenn...