Two Festivals this Month

The Asian American International Film Festival will screen Heaven Rain Flows Sweetly, a film I co-produced and story consulted with director Shasha Li and producer Xin Li, on August 8 in New York City; Mimesis Festival will screen it on August 17 in Boulder, Colorado, and make it available to stream online from August 14-25.

Shasha grew up partly in Kunming, China, where my mother was born. We met through a mutual friend, and it was delightful to collaborate on her first professional film. I am moved by how the film's poetic imagery and narration seek to understand the ecospiritist worldview of Shasha's Nakhi relatives.

The film premiered at DocNYC in November and has also screened at VC Filmfest; it will show at the Native Spirit Film Festival in London October 11-19.

Grant Support for Unconscious Medicine

We’re so excited that several funders have come on board to support our new film UNCONSCIOUS MEDICINE (working title). In the past few months we have received generous support from the LEF Moving Image Fund, The Harvard Initiative on the Study of Psychedelics and Society – following up on earlier grants from the McMillan-Stewart Foundation, Human Family Unity Foundation, and Bob Hong Foundation.

The film is a meditative cinematic journey into the minds of five people harnessing the power of their unconscious to treat their illnesses. Pictured above is Mazateca healer Doña Aurora Catarino Oceguera doing incantations at a sacred mushroom ceremony outside Huautla de Jiménez, Mexico.

Letters from Prison

Chaplain Gene Presley recently shared some feedback from his restorative justice students at Wakulla Correctional Institution in Florida after they watched my film CIRCLE UP. I was especially moved by the the notes from Rafael Aguilera (black ink) and Jack D. Cannon (blue ink), both of whom generously gave permission to share their writings in their name.

Heaven Rain Flows Sweetly at DOC NYC

Heaven Rain Flows Sweetly, a film I co-produced and story consulted with director Shasha Li and producer Xin Li, premiered last night at DOC NYC.

A love letter to home and an offering to nature, this meditative personal documentary traces the filmmaker’s native roots in Himalayan China as she evacuates from historic wildfires that threaten her home in Cascadian Oregon.

I really enjoyed providing feedback on cuts and proposals and supporting these two young filmmakers over the course of two years.

The film can be viewed online through November 26 here.

Professional Development for Brooklyn High School Staff

On November 7, I coordinated a professional development at William E. Grady Career and Technical Education High School in Brooklyn, bringing Janet Connors and Clarissa Turner from my CIRCLE UP film to speak about their experiences as survivors of homicide victims.

Eighty-five teaching staff watched the film the day before, then convened with us over Zoom. After a brief Q&A we divided into several small “circles” facilitated by Janet, Clarissa, and me along with two staff members trained in restorative justice. It was a moving experience for all – and an opportunity for the school to deepen its restorative justice work with its students, many of them facing challenges in their lives.

This opportunity grew out of a large in-person training we did with principals, social workers, and restorative justice coordinators from 20 New York City schools in 2019 (pictured above).

I welcome further opportunities to share this film and advance restorative practices!

ONCE REMOVED and MONKEY DANCE now on New Day Films

I’ve just brought my first two films into New Day Films for distribution. Having joined New Day in 2018 with CIRCLE UP and served on the co-op’s steering committee since last year, I decided it was time to deepen my engagement with the work.

ONCE REMOVED tells the story of my trip to China to meet my mother’s family after a 50-year separation. I discovered that my intellectual relatives faced persecution, imprisonment, and even murder during China’s convulsive political movements. Interweaving dreams, archival footage, and scenes from her relatives' lives, the film meditates on the complications of historical memory.

In MONKEY DANCE, three Cambodian-American teenagers come of age in a world shadowed by their parents' Khmer Rouge nightmares. Traditional Cambodian dance links them to their parents’ culture, but fast cars, hip consumerism, and new romance pull harder. The three teens gradually come to appreciate their parents’ sacrifices and begin to make good on their parents’ dreams.

Both films are available for educational streaming or DVD purchase through New Day and for individual streaming through many public libraries’ Kanopy accounts.

Wrapped Mexico shoot

I’ve just returned from a second shoot in Mexico’s Sierra Mazateca for my Untitled Altered States Film. It was great to have a chance to spend more time with Isabel García Casteñada, pictured above at her home, and to gather more material to put her story in context.

I’m so appreciative of the collaborators on this project, both in front of and behind the camera! And I hope to return to Mexico many times, as I have throughout my life.