Our identities in relation to where we find ourselves are examined in depth in these short films. Personal identification in relation to diaspora is looked at from a variety of angles here. This collection of films covers stories of triumph, hardship, and everything in between.&nbsp; This screening features 6 films. Toggle between film descriptions by scrolling and clicking on the buttons on the top right.

Marley Davidson, an Asian Pacific Islander High School Senior, reflects on how shifting between the rural westside of Oahu and the big city affects her ability to balance her Native Hawaiian identity and personal values. *Premiered on PBS Hawai'i as part of the Hiki Nō Program; Official Selection: HIFF 'Ōpiofest, Olelo Youth Xchange Awards, and Native Indigenous Student Academy for Cinematic Arts Film Festival. Director Biography -&nbsp;Marley Kahiau Davidson<a href="https://filmfreeway-production-storage-01-connector.filmfreeway.com/press_kits/headshots/002/974/136/original/49c732e5ff-headshot.jpg?1737154838" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://filmfreeway-production-storage-01-connector.filmfreeway.com/press_kits/headshots/002/974/136/thumb/49c732e5ff-headshot.jpg?1737154838" width="163" style="border: none; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-language-override: inherit; font-size: 12.95px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle; height: auto; max-width: 100%; position: relative; display: inline; margin: 0px 1em 1em 0px; float: left;"></a>Marley Davidson is a Senior at Mid Pacific Institute and a Mid Pacific School of the Arts Certificate Student who intends to continue with her passion in film by majoring in Film Production in college. Marley is also an actor, participating in her school’s theater productions since her junior year. She has done acting for film intensives in California for two years and participated in a Hawaii Women in Filmmaking film camp where she wrote and acted in a short horror film. Marley enjoys writing scripts, learning cinematography techniques, and working on a set. UPDATE: Marley is currently attending film school on the U.S. continent. Director Statement“Two Worlds Apart” is something very personal to me, capturing a feeling of both belonging yet feeling out of place in the presence of your own home. It compares two versions of what I call home, two sides of the island that raised me, but one side brings out a different version of myself that I feel most comfortable with, while the other brings me insecurity of my mixed heritage. This film allowed me to reflect a lot about who I am and what identity means to me.

Two Worlds Apart

Larry Ramos is the first Asian American to win a Grammy. A ukulele child prodigy, he would go on to be a key member of the New Christy Minstrels and The Association. Director Biography -&nbsp;Rick Quan<a href="https://filmfreeway-production-storage-01-connector.filmfreeway.com/press_kits/headshots/003/114/080/original/347e3b47ad-headshot.jpg?1764353688" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://filmfreeway-production-storage-01-connector.filmfreeway.com/press_kits/headshots/003/114/080/thumb/347e3b47ad-headshot.jpg?1764353688" style="border: none; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-language-override: inherit; font-size: 12.95px; margin: 0px 1em 1em 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle; display: inline; height: auto; max-width: 100%; position: relative; float: left;" width="163"></a>Rick Quan is an Emmy award winning news anchor and reporter. He is the first Chinese American television sportscaster in the country and the first Asian American male to be a full-time anchor in the San Francisco Bay Area. Rick was recently inducted into the NATAS Silver Circle for his more than 25 years of broadcast excellence in the Northern California and Hawaii TV markets. Rick is also an award winning documentarian, having produced several short documentaries on various Asian American pioneers.

Along Comes Larry, The Larry Ramos Story

During WW II Japanese Americans were incarcerated at the Tule Lake Segregation Center in Modoc County, California from 1942 to 1946. For over 80 years, the Tule Lake jail, while iconic, was a mystery.&nbsp;Why was there a jail inside a concentration camp?&nbsp;Piecing together government reports and photos and a survivor interview, we learn of chilling, long-suppressed stories of human and civil rights violations at the Tule Lake Segregation Center. Inmates were beaten and coerced into giving up birthright US citizenship, separated from their families, removed to Department of Justice camps at Bismarck, ND and Santa Fe, NM. Thousands were deported for daring to protest and resist the unjust WWII incarceration. <img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/eventive-static/7ba93d8304c0fd85768ab8bbbb804a76.png" width="187" style="display: inline; float: left; margin: 0px 1em 1em 0px;">Director Biography -&nbsp;Emiko Omoriwas incarcerated as a toddler with her family at Poston Concentration Camp, Arizona. She studied film at San Francisco State University. In 1968 she was the first female Asian American cinematographer at KQED, the PBS station in San Francisco. Omori's defining work, Rabbit in the Moon, explores the Japanese American incarceration experience. Co-produced with her sister, Chizu Omori, it won a national Emmy, an award at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival where it premiered, and was broadcast nationally on the PBS series, POV. Among its many awards is the John E. O'Connor Film Award from the American Historical Association. Hot Summer Winds, based on two short stories by Hisaye Yamamoto was broadcast on American Playhouse to great acclaim. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Director Statement The photographs in Defiant to the Last have been around for more than 50 years, and have been misinterpreted by everyone. I first encountered them in Michi Weglyn's seminal book Years of Infamy, published in 1976. The photo credit read, intriguingly, "Smuggled photos courtesy of Wayne M. Collins." (Wayne Mortimer Collins, then a Northern California ACLU attorney, was a fierce fighter for Japanese Americans and Japanese Latin Americans during the camps and after to regain their citizenship.) Some of the photos appear in my documentary Rabbit in the Moon, completed in 1999. At that time, the photographer was unknown. The events being documented were a mystery. What appeared as submission by the inmates was, in fact, a hidden story about protest and resistance to the illegal, violent, unconstitutional actions by the US government.Eventually, the son of the photographer, John Ross (born at Tule Lake), revealed that the photographer was his late father, Robert Ross, who worked for the War Relocation Authority. Robert Ross, son of missionaries, had lived in Japan, spoke Japanese, and was sympathetic to our plight. In 1945, ACLU lawyer Wayne Collins was sent a second time to Tule Lake to investigate the existence of a second stockade and became aware of the Renunciation Act and the men being held and brutalized in the jail. Here's where the story gets a bit murky. According to John Ross, his father made prints of these photos and left them on a table for "someone" to take. I assume that the "someone" was Wayne Collins. This accounts for the intriguing photo credit in Michi Weglyn's book.Piecing together the captions and dates on the backs of these photographs with government memos, reports, and a survivor interview, the story of resistance by the inmates emerged. Like a graphic novel, I was able to visually reconstruct one of the most chaotic and insidious times at the Tule Lake Segregation Center.Several mysteries have been solved: the purpose of the jail, the identity of the photographer, and a true account of what was happening at the infamous, high security Tule Lake Segregation Center.

Defiant to the Last, Resistance at the Tule Lake Jail

A Korean American cobbler in Nashville, Tennessee finds peace in his simple life. Director Biography -&nbsp;Haneol Lee<a href="https://filmfreeway-production-storage-01-connector.filmfreeway.com/press_kits/headshots/003/700/422/original/97decb8cf7-headshot.jpg?1762912417" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://filmfreeway-production-storage-01-connector.filmfreeway.com/press_kits/headshots/003/700/422/thumb/97decb8cf7-headshot.jpg?1762912417" width="163" style="border: none; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-language-override: inherit; font-size: 12.95px; margin: 0px 1em 1em 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle; display: inline; height: auto; max-width: 100%; position: relative; float: left;"></a>Haneol Lee or 이한얼 (b.2002, South Korea) is an award winning filmmaker who is an immigrant from South Korea. Lee's work dives deep into the Korean-American identity and explores themes of the Asian-American diaspora such as generational trauma, language, and cultural duality through a provocative yet contemplative lens. Lee's work has screened at places such as the British Film Institute, Palm Springs International Shortfest, and Cleveland International Film Festival. He is a Short to Feature Lab alumni. ﻿Director StatementThis is SOLE, a documentary short about Song, a Korean cobbler in Nashville who lives a life shaped by quiet dedication and unexpected sacrifice. It was an honor to make this film, and I hope you enjoy it.

English

Sole (얼)

A indigenous Montagnard man that grew up in America, goes back to Vietnam to reclaim his heritage before the government removes his connection to the past. Director Biography -&nbsp;Richard E. Haywood<a href="https://filmfreeway-production-storage-01-connector.filmfreeway.com/press_kits/headshots/003/140/069/original/6a9645d3e7-headshot.jpg?1760253881" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://filmfreeway-production-storage-01-connector.filmfreeway.com/press_kits/headshots/003/140/069/thumb/6a9645d3e7-headshot.jpg?1760253881" style="border: none; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-language-override: inherit; font-size: 12.95px; margin: 0px 1em 1em 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle; display: inline; height: auto; max-width: 100%; position: relative; float: left;" width="163"></a>Richard E. Haywood is a Writer, Director, and Producer and is pursuing a Masters degree in Digital Media Management from the University of Southern California (USC). During his undergraduate studies at CSULB, Richard has directed 3 short films that have gone on to play in Oscar Qualifying film festivals that include Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, American Film and Documentary Film Festival (AMDOCS), and has received production grants from STARZ for his films Women on Watch about the AIDS crisis and for Words to Live By about CODAS of Mexican Immigrants, which was accepted into a BAFTA qualifying film festival. He has also directed a total of 14 short form projects in genres to include drama, horror, fantasy, and thriller. In 2023, he was selected for the Academy Gold Rising program, a talent development program of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and was employed as a Live Entertainment Intern for The Walt Disney Company. He was written up in Advocate, Voyage LA and Viking. I was also nominated for the CBMA (Campaign for Black Male Achievement) Award of Merit. The stories that most fascinate him as a filmmaker dive into the nuance of humanity, the choices we make, and the impact of those choices on the world around us. At the core of his entertainment pursuits is the desire to lift as he climbs by utilizing his own experiences, knowledge, and resources to provide opportunities where possible.

The Road Home

Ke Kino Lua means the dual-natured in Hawaiian. After moving to Salt Lake City for his first day of work, does Kaleo stick to his island roots or accept western corporate culture? Director Biography -&nbsp;Eve Davidson<a href="https://filmfreeway-production-storage-01-connector.filmfreeway.com/press_kits/headshots/003/712/307/original/317bd4002c-headshot.jpg?1764027703" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://filmfreeway-production-storage-01-connector.filmfreeway.com/press_kits/headshots/003/712/307/thumb/317bd4002c-headshot.jpg?1764027703" style="border: none; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-language-override: inherit; margin: 0px 1em 1em 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle; display: inline; height: auto; max-width: 100%; position: relative; float: left;" width="106"></a>Eve Davidson is a senior at Mid-Pacific Institute. She has a passion for editing and has edited over a dozen short films and music videos. She edited the thriller "Forbidden Ritual" which screened at the Hawai'i International Film Festival's 'Opiofest 2025.

Ke Kino Lua

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Shorts Program: Our Homes, Our Histories

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