A Song For Ourselves Mixtape is back up

DJ Phatrick's A Song For Ourselves Mixtape is back online to download:

A Grain of Sand in Smithsonian Folkways Magazine

Sojin Kim recently wrote an excellent, in-depth article on the legendary A Grain of Sand album by Chris Iijima, Nobuko Miyamoto and Charlie Chin. Progressive Asian American music pretty much starts with this album. In the Smithsonian Folkways Magazine cover story, Sojin provides a background on all three artists as well as the movement that inspired them. A must read! Read it here.

Discover Nikkei Article

Here's an article (part 1 of 2) on Discover Nikkei about my film Pilgrimage and the connection I try to make with the JA community through my work. I got a chance to sit down and talk with writer Mia Nakaji Monnier at JANM last year and I thought she did an excellent job with article.

Interview for Fancast.com

My blogging skills are the worst! I forgot to post this interview I did for Fancast.com in December. The article was written by Chi-hui Yang, the curator of Comcast's Cinema Asian America. I owe a lot to Chi-hui. As the director of the San Francisco Asian American International Film Festival, he picked my first film, Yellow Brotherhood, to screen at the festival and has been really supportive of my work ever since. It's also because of him that A Song For Ourselves was part of last month's Cinema Asian America line-up.

Read the interview here.

Review of A Song For Ourselves in Anthropology Review

Here's a recent review of A Song For Ourselves published on the Anthropology Review Database site. Click here to read.

Here's another review posted last year on Educational Media Reviews Online.

If you would like to get A Song For Ourselves into you school's library please contact Third World Majority or Center For Asian American Media.

A Song For Ourselves available on Comcast's On Demand in December!

I'm excited to announce that A Song For Ourselves is now available to Comcast digital cable subscribers with On-Demand for $.99! Comcast just launched Cinema Asian America, a ground-breaking new video-on demand offering, which will feature Asian American films. It's a huge honor to have my film included in a list of Asian American Cinema heavy hitters like Saving Face, Treeless Mountain, and Planet B-Boy.



Cinema Asian America will offer a new curated line-up of films each month, which means A Song For Ourselves will only be available from Dec. 1 - Jan. 3. This is a really significant opportunity to show corporations like Comcast that there is indeed an audience for relevant Asian American film, so please order (it's only a buck!) and spread the word!
If you have Comcast this is what you do:

1) Click on the “On Demand” button
2) Look under the “Movies” folder
3) Select the “Movie Collections” folder
4) Select the “Cinema Asian America” folder to see the list of films

Feature article in Evil Monito by Terry Hwang

A couple months back my friend Terry Hwang was kind enough to write a feature on me for Evil Monito. It's one of the most insightful articles that have been written on me (like all three of them) and I know that Terry really spent a lot of time working on it. I went to school with her at UCLA and it's been inspiring to watch her chase her dreams as a writer. You can read the article here.

A Song For Ourselves at Minneapolis/St. Paul Asian Film Festival - 11/10

A Song For Ourselves is coming to the land of Purple Rain! The first annual Minneapolis/St. Paul Asian Film Festival kicks off on Nov. 3rd and runs until the 13th. Song will be playing in the "Asian American Shorts Program" on 11/10 at 7pm. Much respect to all the organizers of the festival for making Asian American cinema a little more accessible to their communities!

A Song For Ourselves at the Pacific Rim Film Festival

A Song For Ourselves returns to Santa Cruz for the Pacific Rim Film Festival. Wish I could make it up for the screening. Fall in the Cruz is beautiful.

PACIFIC RIM FILM FESTIVAL
Sunday, Oct. 17th at 10p
Del Mar Theatre
Santa Cruz, CA.

A Song For Ourselves Wins at RiverRun!

A Song For Ourselves was awarded both Best Documentary Short and Best Student Documentary Short at last week's RiverRun Film Festival!

A Song For Ourselves at RiverRun Film Festival - April 23, 24,25

A Song For Ourselves will be playing at the RiverRun Film Festival in Winston-Salem, NC this weekend. It will be playing in the Documentary Shorts #1 program on the following days:

April 23rd @ 5p at Aperture Cinema 2
April 24th @ 2p at UNCSA Campus - Gold Theater
April 25th @ 11:30a at Aperture Cinema 2

And You Say Chi City

The Chicago trip was too quick, didn't get to see or taste much of the city but I did kick it with good folks and saw some old friends. The Nakamura Trifecta event went well, Goh is always great to see/hear live and Eric schooled me on the hu$tle game and called me a leach during the panel.

Before I got there, Eric, Goh and Tim were guests on a local radio station (listen to the show here).

Before our presentation at Columbia College, Tim found himself surrounded by Nakamuras and a whole lot of aaaaaahhyeaaaaaahh!


First thing I had to do in Chicago was get a hot dog, and it lived up to all the hype. As much as I love LA dirty dogs, I would rather have one of these any day.


Giant Robot X FAAIM


Two groups that made the Nakamura Trifecta possible was the Columbia College Office of Asian-American Cultural Affairs and the Multi-Cultural Youth Project (MCYP). I met a lot of dope students who are already making an impact in their area.


Before jumping on the plane home I caught up with the good homie Steve from MCYP over some Italian beef sandwiches. We talked about The Chi's fading connection to it's local Asian American history, hip hop, weddings, and he hipped me to the amazing things his youth are doing.


Check out Eric's report back here which includes photos of some of the best sushi I've ever had.

Trilogy Screening in Austin

All three of my films will be screened together for the first time at the Association for Asian American Studies Conference tomorrow in Austin, TX! It'll be my first time in Texas, so of course I'm going to surround myself with a hotel full of Asians.

Thanks For The Love Claremont!

I've presented at the Claremont Colleges three times now and each trip has been worth that long ass drive. Last week I presented a workshop on "API Youth Cultures and Empowerment" at their Asian American Students Spring Conference. I got to build with a room full of students as we watched and listened to the evolution of API cultural workers from Chris Iijima to Faith Santilla to Hari Kondabolu. After the conference we all met up at Bambu's album release party.

The homies from the Claremont Colleges (and a couple of alumni who still think they are students):

Thanks USC Nikkei

I had the privilege of screening Pilgrimage at USC Nikkei's Week of Remembrance last Tuesday. I participated two years ago at the same event and was so impressed by the students at SC that I couldn't pass up another opportunity to come back, even though it was at the other school in LA.

The USC Nikkei crew:

After the film I sat on a panel with Sumi Pendakur, the director of Asian Pacific American Student Services on campus and USC Sociology Prof. Leland Saito, and discussed multiple reasons why it's important to connect the American WWII concentration camps to present day abuses of power and human rights violations. Big ups to Mika and Sean for organizing the week of events!