Spring-2-Summer Hatbox
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Time works in silly paces. Like always, from winter to spring to summer, the seasons going into warmth always pass by in two rolling blinks.
Here’s my Hatbox, (or, things I’ve done recently):
CAAM FEST FILMMAKER SUMMIT:
In early May, I went to San Francisco to 2024 CAAM Fest’s Filmmaker Summit. Thank you to A-DOC for helping fund my experience as an emerging filmmaker to connect with the Asian American documentary community. I’ve been involved with the Asian American documentary space since 2021, when I was a The Sauce Fellow, but this was the first time that I experienced the community in person.
I had the opportunity to talk about From Kudzu as we come up on a year since we went into production on our road trip last summer. Connecting the kudzu vine to the Asian American experience was easy to do in a room full of diaspora and movement– things that the plant and Asian America both have in common. Our team will also be visiting Durham this June at the Southern Documentary Convening to connect with the southern documentary community about our film.
It’s empowering to experience filmmaking in an a space of majority Asian American folks. And I got to see Sonia Desai Rayka’s microdoc, Ohio Is In The Heart, which I helped sound engineer and color.
I met and caught up with some amazing people, storytellers and filmmakers like Rafael Bitanga, Gerry Leonard, Andrew Nadkarni, Kitty Xu, Sonia Desai Rayka, Ryan Quon, Katelyn Liu, Jessica Seng, Diane Quon, Sapana Sakya, Diane Quon, Ai Vuong, Quyên Nguyen-Le, Demi Y Guo, and so many more amazing folks. Thank you to the A-Doc team, esp. Meloddy Gao, Lailanie Gadia and Betsy Tsai for helping empower an enriching experience with the CAAM and A-Doc community. Not too long after, we even had a NYC meetup (S/o to Rafael for being so organized with the meetups. He doesn’t even live here!)
photo by Rafael Bitanga
I also visited the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, where I saw the Sowing Seeds Exhibit by UC Santa Cruz’s Watsonville Is In The Heart organization on the Manong generation, some of the first Filipino laborers to enter the United States. Seeing Filipino American History through this perspective informs me of my own understanding and placement in this country as a second generation Filipino American. Though my family came to the U.S. a generation later, the logistics of their entrance was not too dissimilar from the Manong generation; a labor of demand, and a U.S. government that imported that labor to the country.
JOINING A RUN GROUP & MARATHON TRAINING:
In early April i joined a run club, Ridgewood Runners. The community I’ve experienced has been uplifting, and sharing movement in a communal way has transformed my relationship with my own neighborhood where I’ve lived for the last 3 years.
I’m currently training for my first marathon in San Francisco– seeing these folks one to two times a week really helps the miles go by.
In late May I also hit 800 miles of running on the year. I’ll reserve these sentiments for a post-marathon post, but the miles have been an outlet, a meditation, and a challenge all at the same time. The gratitude is renewed every milestone that passes.
OTHER STUFF:
I also found work after a period of quiet! I’m working with Complex networks at the moment to help with their social videos as a contract video editor. S/o to Viviane Feldman and Joe Shaefer for the opportunity.
In the final hours of the month of May, I finished an early assembly of Missing the Sheep, my personal chaptered feature project on entering the grown-up world while looking back at my fading youth, after 2 years of writing and four years of documenting. This is a special project that’s near and dear to my heart– one I haven’t publicly shared too many details about– but I’m very excited about the pieces forming together.
That’s it for now.
[There will be mountains you won’t move.]