Mixed-race children define themselves in a new HBO documentary "1000% Me"

With humor and sensitivity, filmmaker and comedian W. Kamau Bell tackles the joys and challenges of growing up mixed-race through conversations with kids and families in the San Francisco Bay Area, including his own, that he he has put together in an upcoming HBO special, "1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed."

Recognizing that his own children, born to a Black father and White mother, and growing up in a country still deeply divided by race, would have very different experiences in America than he and his wife did, embarks on a journey of discovery in his family’s Bay Area community. 

RELATED: 

•  Multiracial Americans Becoming the New Normal.
• Mixed race babies on the increase 

The documentary focuses on interracial families from the San Francisco Bay Area, featuring interviews with multiracial children from about 7-years-old up to 16-years old, interracial couples, and field experts. While it will include different perspectives, Bell aims to largely showcase the experience of multiracial children and how their racial identity is a formative part of growing up.

In a series of playful and impactful conversations, Bell explores how these young people navigate issues of identity in a world that can ask them to pick a side and thoughtful exchanges with families reveal the many joys and complexities of what it means to raise multiracial children. 

In his trademark fashion, Bell maintains a serious focus while keeping the discussions lively and accessible, proving along the way that children are more than capable of understanding and furthering complex conversations about race, culture, and identity.

Featured participants, include many who come from families of Asian combined with other races.: 

• Sami (10) is Black and White and looks up to Alicia Keys and Juno, Sami’s sister (7), will tell you why it’s the best to be a middle child.
• Myles (11) is Black and Filipino-American, likes to play basketball, and helps his lola (grandmother) compete in a Filipino cook off.
• Presley (10) is White and Filipino-American. She has her own punk band and occasionally rides around San Francisco with her dad belting tunes from his Karaoke motorcycle.
• Kanani (10) is White, Indigenous, and Latina. She and her parents spend every summer with her dad’s tribe in Costa Rica.
• Anisa (11) is Black and Pakistani-British and she considers being Muslim as much a part of her “mix” as race.
• Her friend Mila (10) is Chinese American and Black. She is deeply thoughtful and speaks in the measured tones of a future world leader while her parents discuss the deeper implications of wearing mismatching socks.
• Sumaya (7) is Guinean and Punjabi and has strong opinions about mangoes, dogs, and llamas.
• Carter (13) is Black and Latina and her best friend Nola (13) is Black and White. They both have two moms but very different birth stories.
• Kaylin (16) has two mixed-race parents. She’s part White, part Black, and part Korean.
• Older family members also participate in the discussions including siblings, parents, grandparents, as well as other adults, and professionals invested in these issues.

The number of Americans identifying as more than one race nearly doubled to 13.5 million between 2010 and 2020, according to US Census data, making mixed race the fastest growing segment of the population.

To some observers, the increase in the number of Americans identifying as more than one race shows that barriers are breaking down. But the increase also may reflect changes to census questions designed to tease out the heritage of multiracial people.

It may also be attributed to the high-profile presence and acceptance of mixed race individuals in the public eye, including: 

Former President Obama and current Vice President Kamala Harris are of mixed race as is Justin Jones, who was in the news recently as one of the Tennessee 3 who were expelled from the Tennessee legislature..

Include AANHPI actors Dwayne Johnson, Jason Momoa and Vanessa Hudgens as mixed race; as well as entertainers Olivia Rodrigo, H.E.R. and Saweetie and athletes tennis player Naomi Osaka and NFL quarterback Kyler Murray.

Journalist Alex Wagner, who is of Burmese and White descent, talks about the moment she realized she was of mixed race in an interview with HelloGiggles:

There were a few discrete moments, though, where I understood that I wasn’t “generically American.” One of them, which I talked about in the book, was this time when I was about 12 years old, when my dad and I were at the local diner, and my dad, who was white, got up and went to use the men’s room. The line cook looked at me and said, “Are you adopted?” It was the first time I thought, “Oh wait, he thinks I look really different. He thinks that I don’t belong in this particular family picture. Why is that?” I was embarrassed in that moment, and I was ashamed for myself, which is totally messed up on a number of levels, but is, I think, a natural reaction to being made to feel like you don’t belong, that you’re an outsider. That was the seed of like, “Okay, wait a second. What does it mean to not be of this place? Where do I fit in the American story? Where does a mixed-race person find that sense of cultural rootedness?”

According to the 2020 US Census, California had the largest numeric increase in people identifying as more than one race, growing 61% from 2010 to slightly over 2 million. People who identified as both White and Asian made up the largest group in both years. Americans identifying as White and American Indian grew by 84% to 384,600.

As children of older generations struggled to fit in and find themselves, the children in Bell's HBO special as the next generation of mixed-race Americans, are offering their own definition of themselves, which could also help define the new America emerging from the old Black-White paradigm.

 FYI: "1000% Me: Growin Up Mixed" airs at 8 p.m., Monday, May 1, 2023 on HBO.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.

HBO names 2020 Asian Pacific American Visionaries

This year's Visionaries, are, from left, Johnson Cheng, Thomas Percy Kim and Tiffany So.

The three finalists for HBO's fourth annual Asian Pacific American Visionaries were announced Wednesday, Sept. 9, The APA Visionaries is a short film competition that showcases film makers of Asian and Pacific Islander descent.

The three winning films exemplified this year’s competition theme: “Breaking Barriers.” Filmmakers Johnson Cheng (“Lonely Blue Night”), Thomas Percy Kim (“Si”), and Tiffany So (“Fine China”) will premiere their films online during the 2020 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival on Sept. 25 via HBOVisionaries.com.

Special appearances are expected from 2020 HBO APA Visionaries Ambassador Shannon Lee, Lovecraft Country’s Jamie Chung, as well as a performance by 88Rising artist NIKI.

Tiffany So ("Fine China") is a Chinese Canadian writer and director who is passionate about sharing personal stories in unexpected ways. She studied filmmaking at the University of Southern California. Fine China follows a determined daughter as she uses music and dance to express all that goes unsaid in her Chinese household.

Johnson Cheng ("Lonely Blue Night") is a Chinese American filmmaker whose films have screened at over 100 international film festivals, including Tribeca, TIFF Kids, Atlanta, and Palm Springs (Best Student Film Award). Lonely Blue Night is a portrait of a Chinese family in which a mother and daughter reunite on one lonely blue night. Starring Diana Lin ("The Farewell").

Thomas Percy Kim ("Si") started working on his first stop-motion animated short film,  at the age of 14. At 19, Thomas finished his live-action short film, Si, starring Ki Hong Lee, and is in development for a feature while attending USC for Film Production. 

The short is a story of an Asian American boy who navigates micro-aggression with his friends through seemingly innocent jokes and games after baseball practice.

“At HBO, we are proud to see how much theAPA Visionaries competition has grown and the impact it has created in the industry,” said Jackie Gagne, SVP Multicultural Marketing, WarnerMedia. “Heading into a year where we saw a vast increase in submissions, we are excited to continue elevating unique experiences and highlighting the unsung talent and diversity of storytellers that exists within the Asian Pacific American community.”

In addition to their premieres at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, HBO will air the films on HBO and available to stream on HBO Max on September 29th.

"Visual Communications is grateful to HBO for their commitment to amplifying our stories through HBO APA Visionaries," said Francis Cullado, Executive Director of Visual Communications. 

"From navigating microaggressions to intergenerational family dynamics, each film is a nuanced portrait of our experiences in America. We are excited to present the works of Johnson Cheng, Thomas Percy Kim, and Tiffany So with our creative communities," said Cullado.

Indian American family featured in HBO's new series

INSTAGRAM / MELANIE CHANDRA

The women developing  HBO's 'Attachment' are, from left: Executive producer Lauren Levy Neustadter, Melanie Chandra, co-executive producer Jade Weng abd writer and producer Amy Aniobi.

Indian American actress Melanie Chandra is teaming up with Insecure writer and producer Amy Aniobi to create a new  series for HBO.

Chandra wants the project, titled Attachment, to give a more authentic insight into the world of Indian Americans.

The series tells the story of a first-generation Indian American tech CEO who’s forced to share her tiny New York City apartment with her mother, who’s considering a divorce. The two learn to live with each other — and for themselves.

Chandra, best known for starring in Code Black, will be a consulting producer for Attachment,

“You have NO idea how thrilled I am to finally share this with the world. Dear friend and powerhouse @janiobi and I just sold a show to HBO!!! Over the last 2 years, we’ve been quietly plugging away," Chandra posted on Instagram. 

"We dreamed of creating a series built around an Indian American girl, female ambition, and the complicated relationships between immigrant moms and their first gen kids. We poured so much of ourselves into these characters and the world we created,” she wrote.

Produced by Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine, according to the publication, no release date or casting has been announced.

________________________________________________________________________

Maryland court denies new trial for subject of HBO documentary

Convicted murderer Adnan Syed will not get a retrial. Friday (March 8) the Maryland Court of Appeals denied a retrial of Adnan Syed after a popular podcast cast doubt on his guilt and raised the question if he was adequately defended.

In a 4-3 split decision by the Maryland's highest court agreed that  Syed's defense was deficient but it "did not prejudice" the case.

Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh released a statement, saying: "We are pleased with the court's decision. Justice was done for Hae Min Lee and her family."

Syed's attorney, Justin Brown released a statement, saying, "We are devastated by the Court of Appeals' decision but we will not give up on Adnan Syed.

"There was a credible alibi witness who was with Adnan at the precise time of the murder and now the Court of Appeals has said that witness would not have affected the outcome of the proceeding. We think just the opposite is true. From the perspective of the defendant, there is no stronger evidence than an alibi witness."

It's been 20 years since the slaying of 18-year old high school student Lee. Her ex-boyfriend Syed was convicted and has been in prison ever since. Still, the question remains in the eyes of the public: Who killed Hae Min Lee?

That is the question explored by Oscar-nominated documntary filmmaker Amy Berg in her four-part series. It's the question that made the Serial podcast the most listened to podcast in NPR history and the question asked by millions of listeners, in college dorm rooms and office meetings during lunch hour.

Hae Min Lee and Adnan Syed in high school.

The Case Against Syed will explore the 1999 Lee's death, and the subsequent conviction of her ex-boyfriend, Syed, a case brought to global attention by the hugely popular Serial podcast.

In production since 2015, The Case Against Adnan Syed closely re-examines the events leading up to Hae Min Lee’s disappearance, from high school romance, forbidden love and cultural conflict, to the aftermath of her disappearance, the original police investigation and the present day, when Syed awaits a new trial.

Presenting new discoveries as well as groundbreaking revelations that challenge the state’s case, and featuring exclusive access to Syed, the defense team, the Syed family, friends and teachers of both students, and members of City of Baltimore law enforcement, the series traces how the rush to justice and Syed’s conviction in 2000 raised more questions than answers about what happened to Hae Min Lee, underscoring the instability of memory and conflicting eyewitnesses.

In an interview with Vulture, Berg said one thing that her series explores that was not adequately covered in the podcast was the teenage murder victim. Berg was allowed access to Lee's diary.

"There were things in there that are very personal. She was struggling like most teenage girls are in high school, and she just seemed like this beautiful, passionate woman who lived life to the fullest. She experienced extreme emotions," said Berg. "She fell in love and fell out of love. She was going through a lot at that time. Junior and senior years of high school is a very important time for a young woman. I feel like I learned a lot about her."

Some of problems that came up in their relationship was cultural. Their hidden relationship speaks to cultural strictures -- she was Korean-American, he the son of Pakistani immigrants -- that created impediments to their relationship, issues that Lee addresses at some length in the diary entries.

In June 2016, Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Martin P. Welch vacated Adnan Syed's conviction and granted him a new trial after new evidence challenged the reliability of cell phone data linking Syed to the crime scene, and a long-awaited alibi witness finally had her day in court. The State of Maryland appealed the lower court judge’s ruling, but on March 29, 2018, the Court of Special Appeals also ruled to vacate Syed’s conviction and granted him the retrial he has been waiting for.

HBO's series was produced before  the Maryland court rendered its decision Friday. Does the ruling end the questions surrounding this case, or does it only expose the inadequacies of our judicial system?

* * *

"The Case Against Adnan Syed" premieres March 10 at 9 p.m. on HBO.

HBO names Asian Pacific American Visionaries

From left, Julie Zhan, Nirav Bhakta and So Young Shelly Yo.

The HBO network has selected filmmakers Julie Zhan, So Young Shelly Yo and Nirav Bhakta as finalists for the third annual Asian Pacific American Visionaries short film competition.
The competition adds to Hollywood’s changing landscape of inclusion and representation of marginalized voices by showcasing cinematic storytellers of Asian and Pacific Islander descent. Zhan’s Zoetic, Yo’s Moonwalk With Me and Bhakta’s Halwa will premiere at the 2019 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, May 2-10.

“HBO is committed to uplifting the next generation of APA storytellers, talent and entertainment community at large,” said Jackie Gagne, VP Multicultural Marketing at HBO. “The recent surge in Asian American visibility is only the beginning and we hope this competition serves to continue this incredible momentum in Hollywood.”

“HBO Visionaries continues to provide a platform for the community to not only tell authentic stories, but shine a spotlight on all these amazing creatives,” adds Sujata Day, APA Visionaries 2019 Ambassador. “It’s exciting to see HBO’s investment in the community by giving emerging directors a chance to be in the limelight

The finalists were selected from hundreds of submissions and were judged by a distinguished panel of HBO executives, industry leaders and fellow APA filmmakers. The three winning films touched on the subject of developing relationships and its complexities through the modern Asian American lens.

Read more about the finalists and their films below.

Nirav Bhakta (Halwa) takes inspiration from his immigrant background to portray the challenges of the Asian diaspora. His films have been shown at film festivals around the world, including the prestigious UK Asian Film Festival. Halwa tells the story of an Indian woman who rekindles her relationship with a childhood sweetheart through Facebook messages, but her abusive husband takes notice. The film was co-directed by Gayatri Bajpai.

So Young Shelly Yo (Moonwalk With Me”) is a Korean American filmmaker living in Los Angeles. She recently graduated from Columbia University where she received her MFA for screenwriting and directing. She was selected to be part of the Alfred P. Sloan Mentorship Program and was a finalist for the Sloan Screenplay Grant in 2018. Moonwalk With Me is about a Korean American girl who is haunted by her father’s disappearances and tells the story of the immigrant experience through a magical landscape.

Julie Zhan (Zoetic) is a Chinese American actress and filmmaker who has been an impassioned advocate for diverse representation in the media. She has used digital media as a platform for her performances. She has garnered over 100,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel, ShutUpAndDance. Zoetic is a coming of age story about a single, 60-year old Chinese immigrant mother who is challenged to think of her own wants and needs. She reluctantly agrees to join an online dating app with the help of her daughter. Through the experience, they begin to break through the emotional wall between Asian parent and child. Zoetic was co-directed by Wesley Chan, a co-founder of popular Asian American production company Wong Fu Productions.

HBO developing comedy of K-Town family

Greta Lee, left, and Jason Kim are the creative minds behind the proposed HBO series Ktown.

CRAZY RICH ASIANS' critical and box office success continues to send ripples throughout Hollywood, ground zero for America's pop culture.

HBO is the latest network to jump on the bandwagon. The network is developing a dark comedy featuring all Asian American leads.

The network that is home to Game of Thrones, The Sopranos and True Detective is developing a comedy series that takes place in Los Angeles' Koreatown titled - naturally - K-town. It is the creation of Jason Kim and Greta Lee,

Lee will also play Yumi, a self-proclaimed Brentwood Barbie who has rejected her Korean roots. She is part of the Kang family, K-town's power brokers.

Lee said, “Jason and I both have a lot of experiencing working with them [HBO], it’s a very comfy place for us,” according to Vulture.Kim currently serves as a producer on HBO’s comedy series Barry. He recently was a consulting producer for “Love” on Netflix, and prior to that was an executive story editor on HBO’s Girls, where Lee and Kim met when Lee had a role as Soojin.

If HBO likes the pilot and decides to make it part of their stable, K-town would become the first  series by the network starring Asian Americans.
__________________________________________________________________________

HBO announces finalists of APA Visionaries short film competition

THE THREE FINALISTS of HBO Asian Pacific American Visionaries, a short film competition that provides emerging directors of Asian and/or Pacific Islander descent the opportunity to showcase their work last Feb. 22 in New York City.

Filmmakers Maritte Go (“Remittance”), Huay-Bing Law (“June”), and Feng-I Fiona Roan (“Jiejie”) will have their shorts premiere at the 2018 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival in May; where the first, second and third place winners will be announced.

HBO will debut the trio of films during Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in May on its on-demand and digital platforms (including HBO NOW®, HBO GO®, HBO On Demand® and affiliate portals).

For this year’s competition, directors were asked to explore the concept of “home” in creative and innovative ways.

As a result, the trio of films addresses a range of historic – and timely – issues of immigration, racism and assimilation.

About the finalists

• Maritte Go (“Remittance”) 

She is a Filipino/American filmmaker who attended USC as a graduate student with a Masters in Film and TV Production.

She is currently in pre-production to direct and write a horror anthology produced by Radio Silence.

Inspired by her immigrant family’s experiences, “Remittance” tells the story of a Filipino cruise worker who receives a call informing her that her son is in the hospital.

• Huay-Bing Law (“June”) 

Heis a native Texan whose narrative and documentary shorts have earned a Student Academy Award nomination and other notable honors.

He is currently pursuing his MFA in Film Production from the University of Texas at Austin.

Set on an American college campus during the 1960s, “June” chronicles the experience of a young Chinese woman as she attends her husband’s graduation.

• Feng-I Fiona Roan (“Jiejie”) 

She is a writer/director born in Taipei, raised in Oregon and now living in Los Angeles, where she earned her directing MFA from the American Film Institute.

Prior to filmmaking, Feng-I was trained in classical Chinese Literature at National Taiwan University.

“Jiejie” is a portrait of two young sisters being raised by a single immigrant mother in Los Angeles in 1997.

Judged by a panel of HBO executives, industry leaders, and fellow APA filmmakers, the jury also included representatives from the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival and the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment (CAPE).

Launched in 2016, APA Visionaries was created to help further the dialogue about race, diversity and representation in Hollywood while also identifying new cinematic storytellers who offer unique perspectives of the Asian Pacific American experience.

“HBO is proud to not only be part of the dialogue about media diversity but also leading new conversations around it,” stated Jackie Gagne, VP Multicultural Marketing at HBO.

“With Asian Pacific American Visionaries, we are empowering communities through representation while celebrating great artistic talent.”

“In order for progress and change to be possible for Asian Americans in Hollywood, the major studios and networks must find ways to work together with our community,” said Francis Cullado, Executive Director of Visual Communications, the organization that produces the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival,"  said Michelle K. Sugihara, Executive Director of CAPE.

“Asian Pacific American Visionaries perfectly aligns with our organization’s core principles of creating new opportunities for APA artists and advancing culture through entertainment.”
________________________________________________________________________________

HBO needs to reconsider its plans to produce alt-history "Confederate"

Game of Throne producers ponder a news series for HBO.

NOW is not the time to give the rising white supremacist movement another outlet to air their racist views.

That's why we are joing the rising chorus against HBO's proposed Confedrate, a show they hope will take the place of Game of Thrones when the Westeros drama ends next season.

After Charlottesville where white nationalists tried to "save" a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert Lee and the violence that followed, the last thing the United States needs is a show that gives any validation to white supremacists beliefs, even if  they're presented in a fictional world.

The premise of Confederate is an alternative universe where the Confederate States of America wins the Civil War. America is divided into two countries, the Union which fought against slavery, and the South where slavery still exists and part of the norm.

The show is being produced by the same team that brought us the wildly successful Game of Thrones, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. HBO wanted to keep the two in their stable so any project they proposed would probably have been given the green light.

Not surprisingly, the concept was met with skepticism and cynicism from people of color. The originator of #OscarsSoWhite launched a campaign #NoConfederate to oppose the proposed show.

In response to the backlash, HBO felt compelled to respond. Here’s the statement in full:

"We support everybody’s right to express an opinion but the suggestion of irresponsibility on our part is simply undeserved. HBO has a long history of championing intelligent storytelling and we will approach this project with the same level of thoughtfulness that has always defined our programming. We recognize the sensitivity of this project and will treat it with the respect that it deserves. Our creative partners should be given time to develop the series rather than face prejudgment."

By giving the OK to proceed with the project, HBO executives themselves have "prejudged" the show. The project will not air until GOT is finished so it would premiere sometime in 2019 so there is still time to get the network to reconsider. 

In an effort to make it palatable to audiences of color and to present a world where slavery is acceptable, Benioff and Weiss will be working with two experienced African/American executive producers, Nichelle Tramble Spellman (The Good Wife) and Malcolm Spellman (Empire).

But considering the recent events in Charlottesville and Donald Trump's lame attempt to downgrade the seriousness of the growing menace of white superiority. Sometimes, businesses need to look at the bigger picture and consider their social responsibility over profits. I'm sure HBO's shareholders, if aware of the uproar, could sway executives' minds.

Any attempt to portray racism as normal, will only embolden the low-lifes who confuse fiction and reality, ie. those survivalists who are preparing for a zombie apocalypse or preparing for a war against the federal government or some imagined race war. Even contemplating the plausibility of slavery is enough to make the current cadre of white supremacists solidify their warped beliefs.

From D.W. Griffith's silent Birth of a Nation, in which the KKK were portrayed as heroic figures, to Bette Davis Jezebel to the Academy Award-winning Gone With the Wind, Hollywood has a major hand in fostering this myth of Southern gentility and the "loving" relationship between slave and master. 

The worst thing about these classic movies is that as "cinema," they were actually really, really good. As historical portrayals, they were terrible. Unfortunately, they set the tone for a generation of films about the South that romanticized that era, which southerners embraced. 

Unlike the recent movies (after the 1965 Civil Rights Act) about the Civil War, (Roots, Glory, Ride With the Devil, Gettysburg, Lincoln, etc. and the modern Birth of A Nation) The earlier movies helped nurture this romantic image of the South. I always resented the portrayals of Southern gentlemen and sweet-talking Southern belles while the Union generals and soldiers were always the crude outsiders who didn't mind their manners.

In the 1915 'Birth of A Nation' the Klan were the good guys., even as
they get set to lynch one of the runway slaves. 

When HBO announced the Confederate project last week, criticism came in loud and strong.

The sci-fi site io9 posted: “It’s difficult not to be more than a bit skeptical about a show (dreamt up by two white men) built around the premise that the South won the Civil War and has modernized slavery.” The Daily Beast’s Ira Madison III wrote, “all you really need to know is that (‘Confederate’) sounds stupid as hell.”

Social media was even less kind.

Actor David Harewood of the CW’s Supergirl tweeted, “Good luck finding black actors for this project.” NPR’s Linda Holmes tweeted, “This seems extraordinarily unwise.”

“It goes without saying slavery is the worst thing that ever happened in American history. It’s our original sin as a nation. And history doesn’t disappear. That sin is still with us in many ways,” Weiss told New York magazine. “ ‘Confederate,’ in all of our minds, will be an alternative history show. It’s a science-fiction show. One of the strengths of science fiction is that it can show us how this history is still with us in a way no strictly realistic drama ever could, whether it were a historical drama or a contemporary drama. It’s an ugly and a painful history, but we all think this is a reason to talk about it, not a reason to run from it.”

Racism is not some distant chapter in history books. It is something that still lives with us today, ingrained in our institutions and our culture.

Prominent writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, said in a piece in The Atlantic earlier this month that "African Americans do not need science-fiction, or really any fiction, to tell them that that ‘history is still with us.’ It’s right outside our door. It’s in our politics. It’s on our network."

EDITOR'S NOTE: Earlier versions of this post did not include material about Hollywood's influence in painting a false image of the Civil War.

_______________________________________________________________________________

TGIF FEATURE: View the winners of HBO's contest for emerging APA film makers.

BEFORE Asian American & Pacific American Heritage month winds up, take a few moments to view the winners of HBO Asian Pacific American Visionaries, a short-film competition dedicated to showcasing emerging APA directors and exploring the Asian Pacific American experience. 

The works of Dinh Thai, Tiffanie Hsu, and Jingyi Shao – who placed first, second and third, respectively  —  made their world premieres at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival in April. The shorts cover a range of genres and subject matter including family, racism and addiction. Winning films will also premiere on HBO platforms.

Launched in August 2016, APA Visionaries was created to help further the dialogue about race, diversity and representation in Hollywood while offering unique and creative depictions of the Asian Pacific American community. The judges for the competition were comprised of HBO executives and industry experts, including representatives from Visual Communications (organizers of the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival) and the Coalition of Asians in Entertainment (CAPE).

“HBO is proud to celebrate and support the movement towards a diverse media landscape where one’s differences can also be their greatest strength,” stated Jackie Gagne, VP Multicultural Marketing at HBO. 

“These three films and the visionaries behind them are excellent examples of the wealth of stories and talent waiting to be discovered in the Asian Pacific American community.”

About the winners:

• First place — Dinh Thai’s “Monday” is the story of a young drug dealer who finds himself struggling with the moral implications of his illicit profession.

• Second place — Tiffanie Hsu’s “Wonderland” explores the lonely and surreal world of a 12-year-old girl whose mother (played by Joan Chen) is a gambling addict.

• Third place — Jingyi Shao’s “Toenail” finds a career-obsessed yuppie having to care for his ailing father on the eve of his big promotion.