Podcast appearances and mentions of Janet Yang

Think about the histories of your family or memories from your past. What if you recounted them with a dash of magic? What happens when we infuse our stories on film with some magical realism? Tonight's edition of APEX Express features three filmmakers who created magical realism short films centering AAPI women. Listen to directors Cami Kwan, Dorothy Xiao, and Rachel Leyco discuss their films and experiences behind the scenes with host Isabel Li. Cami Kwan: Website | Instagram | Seed & Spark Dorothy Xiao: Website | Instagram  Rachel Leyco: Website | Instagram   Transcript 00:01 [INTRO] Isabel: You're tuned into Apex Express on KPFA. Tonight's edition is all about stories. Think about the histories of your family or memories from your past. Now, what if you recounted them with a dash of magic? What happens when we infuse our stories on film with some magical realism? I'm your host, Isabel Li, and today we have three very special guests, Cami Kwan, Dorothy Chow, and Rachel Leyco. All of them are AAPI filmmakers who received the Julia S. Gouw Short Film Challenge grant from the Coalition of Asian Pacifics and Entertainment and have created short films featuring AAPI stories with magical realism. My first guest of the night is Cami Kwan, a Chinese-American director specializing in stop-motion animation who directed the short film Paper Daughter.  Hi Cami, welcome to APEX Express!  Cami: Hello, thank you so much for having me. Isabel: How do you identify and what communities do you consider yourself a part of?  Cami: So I identify as a queer Asian American woman um and I am a descendant of immigrants, of Chinese immigrants. um Then the communities that I am part of, part of the queer community, part of the Los Angeles community, part of the Chinese American and Asian American community, part of the mixed race community and part of the stop-motion animation and independent artist community.  Isabel: I'm so excited to talk to you about your upcoming short film, Paper Daughter, a gothic stop-motion animated Chinese-American fairy tale about a young woman grappling with the guilt of using the identity of a deceased girl to immigrate to the US via Angel Island in 1926, which is such a fascinating concept. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about how you came up with this story and the historical specificity behind it?  Cami: Absolutely, yeah. So like I mentioned, I'm the child of immigrants, descendants of immigrants rather. So my great grandparents immigrated to the US from China. My great grandfather came over in 1916 and my great grandma came over in 1926. And so I've always grown up knowing the story of Angel Island and knowing the story about the paper sons and paper daughters who had to find any way into the United States that they could. And so they were forced to, you know, take on the identities of other people. And those stories have always stuck with me, you know, like it's very personal. Angel Island means a lot to me and my family. And just the extreme measures that people have always had to take just for the chance at a better life have always been really meaningful to learn about. just the like, I'll use romances in like the art movement, like romantic. It's very romantic and kind of fairy tale-ish, the idea of having to take on a new identity and pretend to be somebody that you're not. And often those identities would be people who had passed away, and then those families had then sold those identities or given those identities to new people. And so it's so interesting the idea of being like the last person to know somebody so deeply, but you'll never get to meet them and you'll never be able to thank them or repay what they sacrificed for your future. And that's kind of how I feel as a descendant of immigrants. The sacrifice that my family made for me was made so long ago that there's no way for me to ever pay it back. And I didn't really get a say in whether I received that sacrifice or not. And I think a lot of descendants of immigrants kind of have to struggle with this. What does it mean for us to be given this new chance at the cost of somebody who came before us? And so that's all of that kind of rolled up into this 14-minute film. Isabel: You describe your film as being in a gothic style? Can you describe what this looks like and why gothic?  Cami: The subject matter is just so naturally gothic. It's dealing a lot with death and a lot with guilt and those big capital R romantic subjects and stuff. My day job, my day-to-day job is working in stop-motion animation directing mostly like children's series and mostly toy related stuff. And so I spent so much of my time in the happy brighter like birthday party storyline kind of like space. But what really made me want to be a filmmaker in the first place were all these like heavier themes, these bigger themes, films by Guillermo del Toro and like Tim Burton and Henry Selig and Hayao Miyazaki and all of those kind of have this like gothic edge to them. And so that's like a story that I've been a type of story I've been wanting to tell for about a decade now.  Isabel: Stylistically, how does this show up in your film? So I imagine darker colors or do you have a visual like preview for us?  Cami: it is a little bit in the darker color space, but it's still very colorful despite all that. It's moody more so than dark, I would say. um We have a lot of like light and dark themes, a lot of like shadow. stuff and um a lot of magical realism, which is where that fairy tale aspect kind of comes in, because you're dealing with things that are so abstract, like guilt and sacrifice and wearing the identity of somebody else, that there's no literal way to convey that. Well, there are literal ways to convey that, but none of those literal ways I feel fully convey the emotional weight of everything. And so we've gone in this very magical realism space where people are tearing information out of these booklets that contain information about the person they're supposed to be and creating these paper masks out of them. And so yeah, there's this whole like magical aspect that tends to be kind of darker. There's imagery of just like being consumed by the identity that you're just supposed to temporarily wear. And there's a lot of like, yeah, there's a lot of darkness in those themes, I think.  Isabel: Wow, that's so interesting. I'd love to learn more about stop motion. What does stop motion make possible that isn't as easily accomplished through other forms of filmmaking? Cami: Yeah, I think the reason why I'm drawn to stop motion, what I stop motion makes possible is like a universality of just like a human experience because with other kinds of animation and other kinds of filmmaking, like there is kind of like an opacity to like how it's made. There's this this veneer, this magic to it, and there's that magic to stop motion too. But the difference between all of those and stop motion is made out of like everyday materials. It's made out of fabric. using paper. We're using clay. We're using materials that people have encountered in their day-to-day lives. And like, that's the one thing that we are all guaranteed to have in common is that we live in a material world and we encounter these textures and materials around us. so by like taking such a specific story and trying to convey such universal themes, it really like behooves us to be using like um a medium that is as universal as stop motion is. So I think that's like the big thing that stop motion unlocks for us. Plus also story-wise, like it's very paper centered, paper daughter, they're tearing paper strips, they're making paper masks. So like physically using these paper textures adds a lot to our world. um And I think working in stop motion gives you a degree of control that live action doesn't give you because we're creating. all of our characters, all of our sets by hand, which gives us so much of a say over what they look like and what they convey based on how they're constructed and stuff. And that's just a degree of communication that nothing else brings.  Isabel: I love that this is a magical realism film and you mentioned Guillermo del Toro. I know that in your campaign trailer, you featured Pan's Labyrinth, which is my all-time favorite movie.  Cami: Me too! Isabel: Yeah! How exactly did you come up with this specific blend of history and fantasy for your film?  Cami: I think that it's almost a natural human instinct to kind of have history and fantasy. Like, that's all that histories are, just stories told to us. And it's just being less literal about it and really leaning into the metaphors that we might use to convey the emotional realities of those histories, right? And so I feel like Del Toro does that a lot with his work. And Miyazaki as well does a lot of that with his work. So much of it deals with unpacking like World War II and things like that. And that's something that I've always just personally been drawn to. Even as a kid, my dream jobs were archaeologist or animator. And so here I kind of get to like do a little bit of both of those, know, like using the magic of animation to make history feel a lot more present and tangible and like emotionally relevant, which is It's really quite poetic to be able to be telling this story right now because it's going to mark the 100 year anniversary of my great grandmother's immigration to the US. I think we are due for an examination of immigration in our country. And I'm very interested to see how people respond to the questions that this raises of how different is the immigrant experience 100 years later. Have we gotten better? Have we gotten worse? Like I would posit it's perhaps worse now than it was then, but I'm really hoping to like, yeah, bring that reality into a more approachable space. And I feel like having that blend of magic and history just makes it a little bit more approachable than telling it in a literal way, you know? Isabel: Those are some great questions to ask. And on that same note, I'm interested in the specificity of Angel Island as well. What types of research did you do to produce your film?  Cami: Oh, gosh, I read every book I could find about it. have… How many books were those? Oh, my gosh, I want to say, like, not as many as I want there to be, you know? Like, Angel Island is not as well covered in history as places like Ellis Island, and there's a lot. to unpack as to why that may be, especially like the racial aspect of it. But I probably read about a dozen different books to prepare for this film. One of the most concrete and useful books that I read is a book called Island, and it's a collection of the poems that are carved into the walls of the men's barracks that remain on Angel Island. And those poems are a huge part, perhaps, the reason why Angel Island has even been preserved as a historical landmark. And so um the three authors went to great pains to replicate these poems, translate them into English, and provide a lot of historical context for the different topics of the poems. And there's a lot of like first-hand testimony from people who immigrated through Angel Island that they interviewed and included in this book. And so I do think that that book, Island, is like the primary source of most of my research for it. Everything else is more like quantitative history and quantitative data. Oh, also The Chinese in America by, I believe it's Iris Chang, that it's not just about Angel Island, but I read that and that gave me a much better understanding about like the place that Chinese immigrants have in American history. Because when I was a kid, like I really only ever learned about great grandma came over through Angel Island and now we're American and we live in America. But our history, as far as I was ever taught, begins and ends with us entering the United States. And so reading um the Chinese in America gave me a much broader understanding about, like, why did we leave China in the first place? And like, what has it meant for us to be in America as Chinese people since then? Yeah, all that came out of like in 2020 and 2021 when the rise of anti-Asian hate crimes were kind of coming about. I personally had to have a huge reckoning with like my racial identity and like how that has impacted like my experience growing up as a mixed-race person who's pretty perceivably Asian and all that stuff. So it was a really whole circle broad situation. Oh, I want to do a quick shout out to the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation. They were very generous with their time and they answered a lot of my questions and sent me a lot of archival images from Angel Island. So I want to thank them so much for their help in the research process of this.  Isabel: Oh, wow. How fascinating. Did you have any expectations on how the production process was going to go? And now that you're on the other side of it, what are your reflections?  Cami: I had no expectations as to whether we were going to get outside funding or not. Like I, I'm not an experienced or adept grant applicant. Like, it was really just because this was the right kind of project to fit with those kinds of grants. So I had no expectations there. So I am beyond thrilled to have received the support from Cape and Janet Yang and Julia S. Gouw and Shorescripts that we've received, like beyond thrilled for that. So that exceeded all of my expectations. um But as far as how the actual production has gone, the fabrication and the animation and the post-production, that's all stuff that I'm extremely familiar with. Again, that is my day-to-day life, that is my job, that is like what I have done for the last eight years at my studio, Apartment D.  So that all went pretty much as I hoped and expected that it would, but here on the other side, the one thing that has surprised me about it was how much love all of the artists put in this project because like we've said so much in this conversation, there's so much specificity to this. This is about my great grandma. This is about my family and my feelings about being a descendant of immigrants. It's so specific that I wasn't sure how emotionally it would resonate with anybody else that wasn't me or wasn't part of the AAPI community, you know?  But every single person — doesn't really even matter if they were Asian, doesn't really even matter if they have a specific connection to immigration — every artist that I asked to join me on this project, I immediately understood what it meant and understood what we were trying to say. And they put so much love into it. And like, we all put a lot of love into everything we do. It's stop motion. It's like, you don't do this unless you love it, you know, because you certainly are not doing it for the money or anything. um everyone was just so…I'm gonna say careful, but I don't mean careful like cautious. I mean careful like full of care. And I did not expect that and I am so grateful for it. Yeah, looking back, it's just so precious and so tender and like I'm so fortunate to have had the crew with me that I had to make this film.  Isabel: That's so lovely. What are you most excited about upon completing your film?  Cami: I'm just excited to share it with the world. I'm so proud of it. It is truly, and I'm not just saying this because it's my baby, but it is very beautiful and it is very special. For a lot of us, one of the first times that we've been able to be in charge of our own departments or to make the decisions that we wanna make and tell things, do things, show things the way that we think they should be done. And so it's kind of significant for many of us to have this film come out and to be received. What I want people to take away from it is an appreciation and a gratitude for everything that has had to happen for us to be where we are now. And I also really want people to take away the unconditional love that has occurred for us to be in the country that we have and to be the people that we are. Every single person is where they are. doesn't matter if you're in America or anywhere else, like we are all here because of the sacrifices that were made by the people who came before us. And those were all made out of unconditional love. And that's like, I want people to come away from this film remembering that our country is built on the unconditional love and sacrifice from people who came before us. And then wanting to give that unconditional love and sacrifice to everybody who's gonna come after us. Isabel: Such an amazing message. And I know that there's still lots to do and you still have a lot to celebrate with your upcoming film and with the festival circuit with Paper Daughter. But looking ahead, do you have any plans of what you want to do after the short film?  Cami: Yeah, I would love to bring it into a feature. There was so much that we had to cut out to make this film. On one hand, I'm glad that we cut out what we did because I think the film as it is, is like so tight and so like airtight and good and perfect and sparse in a really nice way, but we don't even get to delve into life before Angel Island. It begins and ends on the island, and I would love to explore the stories that brought this all about and the stories that come after. So bringing this up into a feature version and getting that in front of people would be amazing. And I have a couple other short film and feature film and script ideas that I would like to start working on as well. I've kind of really, I'm really grooving on the like Asian early Chinese American history. um So most of them are going to be set in California and focus on like Chinese immigrants and their role in the founding of America. um I'm really excited for the like, after all the film festivals, I really want this film to end up in classrooms. And I even just the other day like I have a friend who's a third and fourth grade teacher and she showed it to her class and then the students asked me questions about Angel Island and about animation. if this can play any part in helping to spread the story of Angel Island and the people that immigrated through there, like that's all that I could ever want from this. So I'm really excited for that.  Isabel: That's wonderful. I'll put your website, social media and seed and spark page for Paper Daughter up on kpfa.org so our listeners can learn more about this stop motion film and get updates for how they can watch it. I can't wait to see it when it comes out. And Cami, thank you so much for joining me on Apex Express today.  Cami: Of course, thank you so much for having me. It was a great, great time talking with you.  Isabel: You just heard Cami Kwan talk about her film Paper Daughter. On Apex Express tonight, we have two more special guests who made magical realism short films. Next up is Dorothy Xiao, who made the film Only in This World. She's a Los Angeles-based award-winning filmmaker who likes to create grounded family dramas with a hint of fantasy.  Hi, Dorothy. Welcome to APEX Express.  Dorothy: Hi. Thanks for having me!  Isabel: Of course! Thank you for coming here. My first question for you is actually quite broad. How do you identify and what communities are you a part of?  Dorothy: Oh, that is a good question. I think in a broader sense. I would say, obviously, I identify as an Asian American. um But I think, like, for me, because I grew up in the 626 or the San Gabriel Valley, I grew up with a lot of people who looked like me. So I think I didn't truly identify as being Asian or had awareness of my identity until later on when I went to college. And then I took Asian American Studies classes and I was like, oh, wow, I'm Asian. Or like, what does it mean to be Asian? You know, like, I think I, at that time, prior to recognizing and understanding what it meant, and also even to be a minority, because at that, like I said, growing up in 626, even going to UCLA, where I'm surrounded by a lot of Asians, I never really felt like a minority. But I think it was really after graduating where I, depending on the spaces that I would enter into, especially in the film industry, I was learning like, oh, yeah, I am a minority and this is what it feels like. And prior to that, I think I just identified as being a daughter of immigrants. And that still is very strongly the case just because I grew up listening to so many stories that my parents would tell me, like coming from China, growing up like they grew up in China during a completely different time. I can't even imagine what it would be like living in the way that they did, you know, during the Cultural Revolution, under communism, in an intense way where they were starving, all this political stuff. But yeah, a second gen or for a lot of people, first generation, daughter of immigrants, of parents who decided that they wanted to make a better life for their kids out here in the States. I think that I want to stand by me saying that I don't feel like I am, I don't really want to identify as only just single categories all the time, just because within each community, could be, you could have nuances, right? Because I am a woman, but I'm also like a woman who doesn't want children, you know, and there was just so many different things of how I identify. So hard for me to categorize myself like that. But they are, there are tidbits of different communities. Like I still identify, identify as Asian American. I identify as a daughter of immigrants. I identify as a female filmmaker and yeah. And a business owner, I guess. Yeah.  Isabel: Right. Yes. Thank you for that nuanced answer. You know, it's so fascinating because I was reading about your work and you have worked in animal research administration and an afterschool program and even web development for nonprofits. How did you get into writing and directing?  Dorothy: Yeah. So after graduating college, I was definitely in a place where many, I'm sure, fresh grads understand what we call the quarter life crisis, where we don't know what we wanna do with our lives. And I was working at UCLA because that was the only job that I could get out of college for an animal research administration office. And really, I worked for them as a student. So I was like, well, it makes sense to have that be my full-time job, because you're in a place where you don't have skills. So how do you get a job if you don't have skills? That weird silly catch-22 situation. So I studied psychology in undergrad because my goal was to become a therapist. I wanted to work with Asian and Asian immigrant communities to help them with mental health because there's such a stigma attached to it. And being somebody who found mental health really important and also found that it was a really great way to understand myself. I wanted to work with, I guess, the people of my community. But at that time, I realized that there's still a stigma attached to mental health and it's really hard to get people to even go to therapy. Like living with my parents, it's really difficult. I cannot ever convince them to go. um And so I had pivoted into, or at least I discovered this filmmaking competition and ended up just like making a film for fun with a couple of friends, random people that um were not in film at all. And I had a lot of fun and I realized that we could actually create stories talking about things that are very similar to mental health or could provide that catharsis and validation that you could probably get in a session, in a therapy session. And it's not clinical at all. It's not as clinical. So, you know, on all those different jobs that you mentioned, they're all day jobs, know, animal research administration and then working for an after school program. That was me still trying to figure out how to be a filmmaker on my weekends. I still needed a day job. I didn't have the luxury of going to film school. So I would work at different places that gave me the flexibility of having a day job. But then also I had free time during the weekend to just make films with my friends, make friends films with people like my mom, who was one of my first actors earlier on. Love my mom. She did not do the greatest in my film, but I love her for being there for me. But yeah, like the different organizations or just jobs that I worked for were all really good in terms of providing me management skills and also communication skills because I worked in different industries, you know, and so at the end of the day, it all culminated in me at my current place. Like I am a freelance filmmaker and I also run my own video production company. So um becoming a writer, I mean, being a writer director is my main identity as a filmmaker. However, I don't think you could be a good writer-director if you don't have life experience. And having all those different jobs that I've had provided me with a lot of varied life experience and I interacted with a lot of different people, many different personalities.  Isabel: Yeah, no, I love that. So you grew up in Alhambra, which I'm familiar with because I too grew up in the San Gabriel Valley. How would you say that growing up in Alhambra has shaped you as an artist?  Dorothy: Alhambra is really special, I feel like, because in the San Gabriel Valley, there are many cities like this. You have Chinese people who can actually get by without ever having to learn English. And the same goes for Latin communities as well. And, you know, I have aunts and uncles who lived in Alhambra for years and never learned how to speak English. So I think it's like, what's so special about it, it feels like a safe space for a lot of immigrant communities. And then my parents being immigrants from China. living in Alhambra was a place where they could feel safe and feel connected to the people that they left behind in another country. And so being a child of immigrants, a daughter of like an Asian American, like a Chinese American growing up in Alhambra, I definitely felt like I grew up with a lot of people who were similar to me. know, we were like a lot of times the first American born children of our families even, and it was, we had to essentially understand what it meant to be Asian versus American and all of that.  But I think like being in Alhambra, I never felt like I wasn't seen, or at least I never felt like I was a minority. I think I mentioned this earlier, in that growing up in Alhambra, you do see a lot of people who look like you. And I have a lot of friends in the film industry who have moved out to California because they grew up in towns where they were like one, the only person, the only Asian person in their school or whatever. And I didn't have that experience. So for me, it was really special just being able to have a whole group of friends where there's a bunch of Asians. And we all spoke different languages. Like I had a lot of friends who were Cantonese speakers, but I'm a Mandarin speaker, but it was just really cool. It was like going to your friends' places and then you have aunties. So it's almost like having more family. You could feel like you have more aunts and uncles that will feed you all the time because that is the way they show love, right?  Isabel: Oh, certainly. I think there's so many stories in multicultural places like Alhambra. And speaking of which, you did in your film Only in This World. It's about an empty nester who has to face her ex-husband's mistress in order to summon her daughter back from the afterlife, which is featured in the 2025 Silicon Valley Asian Pacific Film Festival in Sunnyvale. Congratulations on such a beautiful film. I will say that I am a huge fan of magical realism, and Only in This World has some magical elements to it. So I'd love to get to know, how did you come up with this specific plot and characters that make up this film? Dorothy: Yeah, and thank you for wanting to talk about this one. It's a special story to me just because it is, I think it's the first film that I've made where I just decided to incorporate elements of where I grew up. And so Only in This World is inspired by my mom and her Tai Chi group at our local park, so Alhambra Park. My mom would go to do Tai Chi every morning for years. And in Alhambra, actually, as I mentioned, because there are so many immigrant communities, many of the immigrant communities tend to stay together with the people who speak their language. So Chinese people usually stick together with the Chinese speakers, Spanish speakers stick together with the Spanish speakers. You don't see a lot of mingling or intersectionality. But one of the special things that I saw with my mom's Tai Chi group was that they were not just Chinese people or Asian people, but there were Latino people in their group as well. And so even though they couldn't speak the same language, they would show up and still do Tai Chi every morning because it was a matter of doing something together. And so I love that a lot. And I wanted to tell a story about just older women who are finding friendship because I think that's really important in older age and in these groups because you see that a lot of the people in these Tai Chi groups are even the ones, not just Tai Chi groups, but there are dancers in the park, you know, like you'll see them in the mornings, not just in Alhambra, but in Monterey Park, all the different parks, open spaces, they'll have little dance groups.  A lot of the people who are part of those groups happen to be seniors, and I think it's just because they don't have work, they don't have children, they're lonely. And so…I think it's really important to be aware that where friendship or loneliness is actually an epidemic in the senior community. And it's really important to providing good quality of life is to just have them have that connection with other people. And seeing that in my mom, because my mom is getting older, having her be part of that community was what kept her happier. And so, yeah, and also my mother-in-law is Colombian. And she's done Tai Chi before as well with her group in Rosemead. And so I just was like, well, I'm part of a multicultural family. I want to tell a multicultural family story. Yeah, in terms of the magical realism element, I thought a lot about just how my family, if our house has ever burned down, the things that they would take out are our photos, the print four by six, like, you know, just the print photos because they're just so precious to them. There's something about hard copy pictures that is so special that digital photos just can't take over. Like there is an actual energy to how a photo is made or even like back then when we used to use film, there's energy that's required to actually create photos. And so, you know, I wanted that to be the power that powers this magical scanner where energy is taken from the picture and then you have the ability to bring someone you love back from the afterlife. And I really love grounded magical realism because I think it just makes difficult things a lot easier to understand when you add a little bit of magic to it, a little bit of fantasy.  Isabel: Yeah, magical realism is such a special genre. What part of the production process that you find the most profound?  Dorothy: I think it was just really my gratitude in how much my family came together for me and also just like the people of this team, know, like there were, I think one major situation that I can think of that I always think is really funny was, um so we filmed at my mother-in-law's house and my husband, Diego, was also working on set with me. He is not in the film industry. He's a software engineer manager. He's like in tech, but he is one of my biggest supporters. And so…when we were like, yeah, can we film at your mom's house? He was like, okay. But he had to end up being the, quote unquote, location manager, right? Because the house was his responsibility. And then, and he was also my PA and he was also DIT. Like he would be the one dumping footage. He did everything. He was amazing. And then ah one day we found out that his neighbor was actually doing construction and they were hammering. It was like drilling stuff and making new windows. They were doing new windows. And we were just like, oh, like, how do we get them to, like, not make noise? And so, and they don't speak English. And so we were like, oh crap, you know. So like, unfortunately, my producers and I don't speak Spanish, like we're all just English speaking. And then I did have Latinos working on my set, but they, you know, they had other jobs. I wasn't going to make them translate and do all that other stuff. So then Diego so kindly went over and talked to them and was like, essentially we set up. They were totally cool about it. They were like, yeah, okay, you're making a film. then whenever you're rolling sound, we'll just like prevent, like not hammer. And then so Diego is sitting outside with a walkie and talking to the first AD and other people inside the house, because we're all filming inside. don't know what's going outside. And then so like, we would be rolling, rolling. And then um the workers, I think his name was Armando, are like…whenever we cut, Diego would hear it through the walkie and he'd be like, Armando, okay, you're good to go. You can drill. Armando would drill. And then when we're going, and we'd be like, I'm going for another take. And then Diego would be like, Armando, please stop. So it was so nice of them to be willing to accommodate to us. Because you hear a lot of horror stories of LA productions where neighbors see you're filming something and they'll purposely turn on the radio to make it really loud and you have to pay them off and whatever. And in this case, it wasn't it was more like, hey, like, you know, we're making a movie and they were so supportive and they're like, yeah, totally. This is so cool. We will definitely pause our work, our actual work and let you roll down during the brief period. So we're really grateful. We definitely brought them donuts the next day to thank them. But that was just something that I was like, oh yeah, like I don't think I could have pulled that off if I didn't have Diego or if the fact, if it wasn't for the fact that these were the neighbors, know, that we were filming at someone's house and the neighbors already had a relationship with the people who lived here.  Isabel: Wow, that's really adaptable. And I'm so glad that went well for you. Dorothy, you've directed 13 films by now. Have you ever seen one of your films resonate with an audience member that you've interacted with in the past?  Dorothy: So there was this one short I had done a couple years ago called Tarot and it came at a time when I was struggling with the idea of whether or not I wanted to have kids and many of my friends are off having their first or second kids, you know, and so I never really wanted to be a mom, but then I have a partner who I can see being a great father, so I'm more open to the idea of being a mother, but it was still something I was conflicted about. And so I put this all into a short film, just my feelings of how my identity would change if I were to become a mom, because I've read so much about that. I found a Reddit thread one day where people were just talking about how being a mother is hard. And they openly stated how much they hated it. And it's okay to feel that way. And I wanted to put those feelings into this film to just put it out there like, hey, like if you don't like being a mom, even though you love your kid, you could still hate having that identity and be lost about, and it's okay to be lost or not sure about who you are. And so it was a really short film and it ended kind of open ended. It was like five minute film, so it didn't have like a full ending, but it was an open ended ending. And then afterwards I had a bunch of people come up. I had people who were parents, not just mothers, like even, or like fathers who had just had their first kid who were coming up and telling me like, oh, I totally identify. I understand that struggle of learning about who your new identity is after you've had a kid. And then I had people who were child free who were coming to me and saying like, yeah, this is a similar feeling that I've had about whether or not I should have any kids. Because, you know, as women, we have a biological clock that ticks. And that's something I feel frustrated about sometimes where it's really because of my body that I feel pressured to have a kid versus wanting to have one because I want one. And so that was a story I wanted to, or just something I wanted to put into a film. Yeah, and I also had another person come up and tell me that they were like, this was something I felt, but I never really openly talked about. And so I resonated a lot with this and it just helped basically articulate or helped me identify like, oh, I totally feel this way. And so that was really validating to me as a filmmaker because my goal is to reach others who don't feel comfortable talking about certain things that they tend to hide because I have a lot of those types of thoughts that I might feel ashamed or embarrassed to share. But then I put it into a story and then it makes it more digestible and it's like, or it's more, it's entertaining. But then like the core message is still there. And so people watch it and if they feel that they can connect to it, then I've done my job because I have resonated with somebody and I've made them feel seen. And that's ultimately what I wanted to do when I wanted to be a therapist was I just wanted to make people feel seen. I wanted to make them feel connected to other people and less lonely because that's something that I also have struggled with. Yeah, so filmmaking is my way of putting something small out there that I feel and then finding other people who feel the same way as me. And then we can feel validated together. Isabel: Ah yes, that is the power of film, and Dorothy's work can be viewed on her website, which I'll be linking on kpfa.org, as well as her social media, so you can get new updates on what she is working on. Dorothy, thank you so much for joining me on APEX Express today!  Dorothy: Thank you! Thank you for having me, it was so great to meet you!  Isabel: That was Dorothy Xiao, our second guest for tonight's edition of Apex Express, featuring magical realism AAPI filmmakers. Now time for our final guest of the night, Rachel Leyco, who is a queer, award-winning Filipina-American filmmaker, writer, actress, and activist. We'll be talking about her upcoming short film, Milk & Honey.  Hi Rachel, it's such an honor to have you here on APEX Express. Rachel: Hi, thank you so much for having me.  Isabel: How do you identify and what communities do you consider yourself a part of?  Rachel: Yeah, I identify as a queer Filipina-American. Isabel: So we're here to talk about your short film, Milk & Honey, which is about an ambitious Filipina nurse who leaves her family behind in the Philippines to chase the American dream in the 1990s and facing conflicts and hardships along the way. How did you come up with this specific 90s immigration story?  Rachel: Yeah. So Milk and Honey is inspired by my mom's immigrant story. you know, that's really her true story of coming to America in the early 1990s as a very young Filipina nurse while, and also a young mother and leaving behind her daughter, which was me at the time. um you know, following her journey in the film though fictionalized, a lot of the moments are true and there's a lot of exploration of assimilation, cultural barriers, loneliness and the emotional cost of pursuing the American dream.  Isabel: Yeah, when I read that synopsis, I immediately thought of this short film could totally be something that's feature length. How did you sort of this story to something that is like under 15 minutes long?  Rachel: Yeah, so I wrote the short film script first. And actually, you know, this is a proof of concept short film for the feature film. I actually wrote the feature film script after I wrote the short because there was just so much more I wanted to explore with the characters and the story. It definitely couldn't fit into a short film, though I have that short film version. But there was just so much richness to my mom's story that I wanted to explore, so I expanded into a feature. So I do have that feature film version, which I hope to make one day. Isabel: And you mentioned that this film is inspired by your mom's story. Is there any other sort of research that you did into this story that really helped you write? Rachel: Yeah, one of the main reasons I wanted to write the story, I mean, there's many reasons, but one is because there, if you ask the average American or the general public, they won't really know why there are so many Filipino nurses in the healthcare system. Because if you walk into any hospital, you'll see a Filipino nurse, more than one for sure. ah so I was really curious about the history. ah Having my mom as a nurse, my sister's also a nurse, I have a lot of healthcare workers around me. I grew up with that. I, you know, growing up, I also didn't really know or learn Filipino American history because it's not taught in schools. And I, you know, I took AP US history and didn't learn anything about, you know, my culture and our history. It's, not in the books at all. And it wasn't until like my early twenties that I was really curious about my roots and my upbringing and what it means to be Filipino-American specifically. And so um I really went into like a deep dive of just researching Filipino-American history. And specifically last year, I had been wanting to tell a story about a Filipino nurse because of my proximity to it with my mother. And you know, myself being an artist, being a filmmaker in the industry, there's so many medical shows out there, like, know, Grey's Anatomy, that's been long running, but very, very few, and rarely do we see Filipino nurses at the forefront and at the center of those stories. um You know, rarely are they series regulars. You know, sometimes they'll feature a Filipino nurse for like one episode or two and, you know, a recurring or a side character, but Filipino nurses are never the main character, never the series regular. And so that was another big driving force for why I wanted to make this story. And, you know, really making my mom's character the center of it. And so as far as like research, too, I definitely interviewed my mom and I asked her to just tell me her her entire story and specifically why she even wanted to move to the United States because she could have stayed in the Philippines or she could have moved somewhere else. um she saw a newspaper or her friend actually at the time when she was in a nursing school, a friend of hers saw an ad in the newspaper that America was sponsoring nurses. And so she had it in her mind already like, oh, yeah, I've heard of America. I've heard of the United States that it's, you know, there's better opportunities for me there. And at the time she had just had me. And so she had, you she's a young mother. She's trying to take care of her baby, her newborn. And so, you know, she had her eyes set on moving to the United States and that's kind of how her journey happened. And on top of that, I also did my own research on you know, our history, I watched this really amazing documentary um by Vox. It's on YouTube. It's all about why there are so many Filipino nurses in America. And it really just ties back to U.S. colonization. And after World War II, was so many, there was big nursing shortage in the United States. you know, white Americans did not want to, you know, fill that role. So they turn to Filipino women to fill the gap.  Isabel: Yeah, was there something special about the production process that looking back, you would want to replicate in the future or that really speaks to you?  Rachel: Absolutely. um Yeah, mean, definitely this experience and a lot of the people that I brought on to this project, I want to continue to make films with them and continue to make art with them because um I'm just so proud of the team that we put together. Everyone was so passionate and they knew how important the story was. They also had their own special connection to the material that they brought so much heart and passion into the film. that really comes through in the project. so like a lot of the people I brought onto this film, I want to continue to make art with them forever. That's one thing that I'm really, really grateful for, because I got to work with some really awesome people that I had never worked before or I had been wanting to work with. And so it was such a great opportunity that was given to me to be able to connect with such amazing and talented AAPI creatives in my circle.  Isabel: Yeah, I saw on your Instagram page for the film that you shot this film in both Los Angeles and Austin, Texas. Have you ever done a production where you had to sort juggle two different sets in two very different locations? And how was that entire process?  Rachel: Yeah, that was really, it was really fun. It was my first time being able to film in two different cities, let alone like two different states, really. A lot of my past projects have just been, you know, shooting it with the resources that I had that were available to me. You know, usually like my past short film, Thank You for Breaking My Heart, that I did last year, we shot all of it in one location, which was of course like, know, that is something that's really impressive in and of itself, of course. But, you know, because of the bigger budget that we had for Milk and Honey, I really wanted to challenge myself with this. And I really advocated for filming a part of the film in Texas because it is set in Texas. I was raised there. That's where my mom was placed when she, because how the process goes is, you know, she applied for the nursing sponsorship and then they placed them in certain areas. And so she was placed in El Paso, Texas at the time. And so that's where I also grew up. So I set the film there and I really advocated for filming in Texas because I wanted the film to have that feeling of the environment and atmosphere of Texas. um And so we shot some exteriors there for like this really fun Texas montage where you can really like feel that the character is there in, you know, in that heat, the Texas heat. So that was really, that was really fun. And I, you know, we shot, we shot two days in LA and we shot half a day in Austin, Texas. And we hired a second unit in Texas, because, you know, again, like, even though we had a really good budget, was still, you know, it was still pretty small. So I wasn't able to, you know, fly my LA crew over there. um So what we did was we just hired a second unit crew in Austin, Texas, and they were amazing. And most of them were queer, non-binary filmmakers. And it was just such a fun, intimate crew that you know, we just breezed by and had such a great time shooting that.  Isabel: That's wonderful. As a director, what inspires you and what are some of your filmmaking influences?  Rachel: Yeah, I mean, I'm constantly inspired by, you know, new films, filmmakers that I've seen, em particularly for Milk and Honey. I um so the film is, you know, this grounded drama, but there are a lot of moments of magical realism that I mix into it. love magical realism. love one of my favorite movies is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It's such a beautiful film, also very grounded, but it's filled with all of this, you know, magical realism, surrealism. And so I infused that into, you know, Milk and Honey, which was really fun and a challenge to execute. But yeah, and some other filmmakers and creatives that I'm inspired by are Ava Duvernay. think her work is just incredible and also just an incredible artist overall. I love the kind of work that she does because it comes from such a deep place. And I love that she can combine art with politics and social justice as well. Isabel: I also love that you said in your one of your project funding descriptions that you use your art as your act of revolution, which is so relevant given that, you know, in our current state of, you know, our administration is silencing and suppressing voices of our immigrant communities. And how do we as filmmakers, as artists, what does that revolution and representation mean to you as a filmmaker and artist?  Rachel: I truly believe that that art is our act of revolution and just merely creating the art is that act in and of itself. We don't have to do more than that as from, in my opinion, as an artist, because the mere fact of us existing as artists, existing, myself existing and creating the work and having the work exists out there and putting it out. The most powerful thing that an artist can do is to make their art and share it with the world. And after that, just let it go, you know, forget about how it's going to be received. Forget about like, you know, the critics and, and, and the, you know, self doubt you may have and all of those things, because yeah, it's going to come. I think especially in the landscape of, like you said, of where we're at right now with our current administration and you know, just who knows what's going to happen in the next few years, but also in the face of like AI and technology and all of that, I think all we can really do as artists is to, in order for us to change the system is we have to be the change, right? And in order for us to be that change is just to continue to tell our stories and stay authentic to ourselves. Because I think that's also what a lot of people out there are really craving right now. People are craving authentic, real stories by people that we really don't get to see or hear their stories very often. And so um that for me is something that fuels me and my artistry every day.  Isabel: Very well said and a great reminder to all of us artists out there to keep making our art. What do you hope for audiences to take away when they watch your film?  Rachel: What I hope for audiences to get out of watching the film, well, one, at the core of it is a mother-daughter story. And I also did it to honor my mother and her sacrifices and her story. So I hope that, one, audiences will, you know, maybe reflect on their relationship with their mother and… um think of ways to honor their mother and their family and their ancestry as well. And another thing is to really think about what the American dream means to you, because that was another driving force for me with the film is it's called Milk & Honey because a lot of immigrants coined Milk & Honey as America's milk and honey as this like land of abundance, land of opportunity and you know, this is a, this is a place for creating a better life for ourselves. But I, for me, as I've grown up and as an adult now, really looking at like, well, what does the American dream mean to me? Is that still true to me? Do I still think the U S is a place where I can, where I can build a better life? Is it a place of abundance and something in the film, a big theme in the film is where Cherry's character scrutinizes that dream and thinks for herself, like, is the American dream worth it? And what does the American dream actually mean to me? What is the definition of that? So I think that's a big thing I would love audiences to also take away from it, you know, asking themselves that question. Isabel: That's a great thought to end on. I'll be including Rachel's social media and website on kpfa.org as usual so you can see if Milk and Honey will be screening in a film festival near your city during its festival run. Well, Rachel, thank you so much for joining me on APEX Express today. Thanks so much for having me. I really enjoyed it. Please check our website kpfa.org to find out more about magical realism in AAPI stories and the guests we spoke to. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting. Keep organizing. Keep creating and sharing your visions with the world. Your voices are important. APEX Express is produced by Miko Lee, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar, Anuj Vaidya, Swati Rayasam, Cheryl Truong, and Isabel Li. Tonight's show was produced by me, Isabel Li. Thanks to the team at KPFA for their support. Have a great night. The post APEX Express – 1.08.26 – Magical Realism and AAPI Short Films appeared first on KPFA.

State Rep. Janet Yang Rohr, 41st District, joins Lisa Dent to discuss Illinois legislation, House Bill 45. Rep. Rohr shares that customers have complained about the reliability and consistency of digital coupons. She explains what the bill is proposing, giving details how digital coupons would be made available offline.

State Representative Janet Yang Rohr joins Wendy Snyder (in for Bob Sirott) to talk about how unreliable digital coupons can be and what she’s doing to make clipping coupons easier for people with or without smartphones. She also discusses people’s reactions to the passing of a spending bill for transit agencies.

El actor Tom Cruise ha sido nominado al Premio Oscar cuatro veces: como actor por "Nacido el 4 de julio", "Jerry Maguire" y "Magnolia", y como productor por "Top Gun: Maverick" . Nunca ha ganado. "El increíble compromiso de Tom Cruise con nuestra comunidad de cine, con la experiencia en salas y con la comunidad de dobles nos ha inspirado a todos", destacó la presidenta de la Academia, Janet Yang, en el anuncio oficial de un Óscar honorífico el 16 de noviembre, durante la ceremonia de los Governors Awards, evento anual de los premios otorgados por la Junta de Gobernadores de la Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematográficas.

Welcome to Season 5, Episode 15! When it comes to Supreme Court decisions that impacted the classroom, most people know about Brown v Board of Education. A lesser known landmark decision was also very impactful in schools across the U.S. We're talking about Lau v Nichols… a case that influenced the interpretation of Title VI and how U.S. schools needed to support second language learners to succeed in school. In this episode, we talk about the lead up to Lau v Nichols, what the impact of the Supreme Court decision was, and the lasting legacy of the decision. We also take time to address the rhetoric around the ending of the Department of Education and how it would impact not just Bilingual Education but how students are supported in the U.S. We begin the episode with a LOT of current events including growing anti-miscegenation-like decisions, Janet Yang, Alysa Liu, Caitlyn Chen, Te-hina Paopao, and Jonny Kim. We end with another installment of Weird History where we talk about the decision by Levi Strauss and Company to lean into anti-Chinese labor practices back in the late 1800s. If you like what we do, please share, follow, and like us in your podcast directory of choice or on Instagram @AAHistory101. For previous episodes and resources, please visit our site at https://asianamericanhistory101.libsyn.com or our links at http://castpie.com/AAHistory101. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, email us at info@aahistory101.com. Segments 00:25 Intro and Current Events: Janet Yang, Jonny Kim, Kaitlyn Chen, Te-hina PaoPao, Alysa Liu 06:29 The History of Lau v Nichols and Bilingual Education in the U.S. 17:05 Weird History: Levi Strauss and Company and Anti-Chinese Labor

Shannon has known Janet Yang since the late 80s! She was the inspired force behind the idea to make a Bruce Lee biopic at Universal that ultimately became Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story. She went on from there to become an award winning producer at the highest levels. Maybe you've heard of Empire of the Sun, The Joy Luck Club or The People vs Larry Flint? If you have, then you've been touched by Janet. Aside from being a producer Janet is also the current president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She saw a need for greater AANHPI representation and she stepped up to serve. Also a founding member of Gold House, Janet is one to heed a call to action. She is a powerhouse in a kind package – the best kind of powerhouse in my opinion! Shannon is pleased to call her a friend and colleague and overjoyed to introduce you all to her!  Please read her bio on brucelee.com/podcast Connect with Janet: Website: www.janetyang.com Instagram: @janetyangofficial

This week, Gemma chats with Academy President Janet Yang and CEO Bill Kramer about the importance of the Oscars to the global film community, plus its engaging impact on theater-going in a constantly changing industry. Also, Mia and Brian debrief about the Dune: Part Two hype (Space melodrama! More worms! All hail Denis Villeneuve!) and its entry into the Letterboxd Top 250 at a miraculous number six. For the grand finale, riot grrrl rockers Sleater-Kinney make a special appearance, with Carrie Brownstein recounting her brief appearance in Todd Haynes' Carol. Chapters: Opening credits (00:00:00) News (00:01:28) Bill Kramer & Janet Yang interview (00:22:37) Winner Winner Chicken Run Dinner (00:43:39) Sleater-Kinney interview (00:48:00) Closing credits (00:59:40) Credits: Recorded in Los Angeles. Edited by Slim, production manager Sophie Shin, editorial producer Brian Formo. Theme: ‘Hyperlight' by Letterboxd member Trent Walton (AKA Echo Wolf). Artwork by Danny Haas. Best in Show is a TAPEDECK production. Title courtesy of Christopher Guest.

With less than two weeks to go before this year's Oscars, the heads of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science look ahead to this year's ceremony, to rule changes coming up in the future, and to the lingering power of the Barbenheimer effect.Join our first ever Oscar Pool! Email us at littlegoldmen@vf.com, and please put "Oscar Pool" in the subject line to register.(Subject to availability)Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @vfawardsinsiderFollow our hosts: @kateyrich, @rilaws, @karajwarner, @davidcanfield97Our editor and producer is Brett Fuchs

With less than two weeks to go before this year's Oscars, the heads of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science look ahead to this year's ceremony, to rule changes coming up in the future, and to the lingering power of the Barbenheimer effect.Join our first ever Oscar Pool! Email us at littlegoldmen@vf.com, and please put "Oscar Pool" in the subject line to register.(Subject to availability)Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @vfawardsinsiderFollow our hosts: @kateyrich, @rilaws, @karajwarner, @davidcanfield97Our editor and producer is Brett Fuchs

The Golden Screen, the new book by Jeff Yang, offers a comprehensive guide to some of the most significant films for Asian American representation, including commentary by industry trailblazers like Daniel Dae Kim, Janet Yang and Simu Liu. In today's episode, Yang and book contributor Preeti Chhibber speak with NPR's Ailsa Chang about how Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, Bollywood and kung fu movies shaped their identities growing up. They also get to talking about some of the harmful stereotypes we still see on screen today, and why maybe mediocrity isn't such a bad thing.

Janet Yang, film producer and the current President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, shares with Nely how her journey connecting with her roots turned into a career and mission. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ahead of Sunday's Oscars, the first person of Asian descent to lead Hollywood's most powerful organization reflects on connecting the American and Chinese film industries before shifting to producing films like 'The Joy Luck Club,' how racist jokes told at the Oscars in 2016 motivated her to become active in the Academy and how she feels about Chris Rock, Will Smith and accusations that Academy members are racist. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Led by her belief that it is never too late to reinvent yourself, Dr. Zhu Shen pivoted from a successful career in biotech to a successful venture into filmmaking. Motivated by her son's extraordinary talents and her husband's life story, Zhu's journey of triumph, heartbreak, and motherhood is fueled by a deep love for her family and her passion for helping others by sharing her stories.  Zhu is a biotech CEO turned award-winning filmmaker best known for two Oscar-qualified critically acclaimed animation shorts. She produced Ingrid Pitt: Beyond the Forest about a young Holocaust survivor animated by her 11-year-old son, Perry Chen, and Changyou's Journey about her late husband's life, written and directed by Perry Chen. She is currently writing, directing, and producing her personal documentary feature, Journey of a Thousand Miles endorsed by Janet Yang, President of the Academy of Motion Pictures.  Changyou's Journey premiered at Toronto International Film Festival, screened at 19 International film festivals, and won five US film festival awards. Ingrid Pitt: Beyond the Forest won 3 US film Festival awards and screened at over 30 international film festivals. Zhu's love for movies started while watching propaganda films in her childhood during the Chinese cultural revolution. In her former life, she was an award-winning biotech executive author, speaker, and Chinese business expert, featured on national and trade media, including Fox Business Week, China Central Television, Pharmaceutical Executive, and The Scientist magazine. She earned her Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Colorado, her MBA at Cornell University Johnson School of Management, and studied medicine at Peking Union Medical College and pre-med at Peking University. What You Will Hear in This Episode:  How Zhu arrived to where she is today The benefit of dual degrees in science and business First self-manifested opportunity to write Encouraging her son to write film reviews at an early age Becoming an accidental filmmaker Zhu's husband's cancer diagnosis and her son's desire to animate his father's story, Changyou's Journey, inspired Zhu's film, The Journey of a Thousand Miles Lessons learned Helping families reconnect Message for women Quotes “What I did that was successful was to create a niche for myself where I could truly shine and I could leverage my unique knowledge and connections and seize the opportunity to share something that is really exciting with the world.” “That is really the most important thing and what compels me to want to finish this film because I want to share our distinct but also universal journey of how we connected in the end to achieve this level of relationship that is unconditional love that I hope all families could enjoy.” “The film is really a vehicle for sharing our story and journey in the hope of being able to give some food for thought for those who are in the same boat.” “It's never too late to reinvent and guided by your curiosity and passion learn something entirely new." "Your life can be your art and your art can be your life so  there is no reason for us not to live the life that we imagine." Mentioned: Journey of 1000 Miles Film @TigerToZenMom LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram,  Twitter https://bonniemarcusleadership.com/ https://web.facebook.com/bonnie.marcus/  https://www.linkedin.com/in/bonniemarcus https://twitter.com/selfpromote https://www.instagram.com/self_promote_/ Gendered Ageism Survey Results Forbes article 5 Tips to own the superpower of your age IAMMusicGroup Purchase my book Not Done Yet on Amazon:  If you enjoyed this episode of Badass Women Podcast, then make sure to subscribe to the podcast and drop us a five-star review.

There is a wind of change at the Academy of Motion Picture, Arts and Sciences. First there's the apology issued to Native American Sacheen Littlefeather. Then there's the election of Janet Yang as the first Asian-American woman president. Could this mean a new age for gender and racial diversity in Hollywood? Guest: Sarah Tetteh, Founder of Showbizmama.com

Breaking news, everyone is stealing Spam. We're back with more news because you listeners loved it so much. Janet Yang is set to be the first Asian American president of The Academy of Motion Pictures aka The Oscars. Love or hate GMO's but they've taken the smell out of durains. All that and so much more and we look to become the new Asian CNN. Ben sucks on tree sap. Lingjie discovers the meaning of an upside down pineapple. Come listen to The Worst Asian Podcast. -------------------------------------------FOLLOW US EVERYWHERE @WorstAsianPod► WEBSITE: www.worstasianpod.com► INSTAGRAM: www.instagram.com/worstasianpod► FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/worstasianpod► TWITTER: www.twitter.com/worstasianpod► TIKTOK: www.tiktok.com/@worstasianpod► YOUTUBE: https://bit.ly/3Agv8Aj► EMAIL: WorstAsianPodcast@Gmail.com-------------------------------------------SUPPORT US $$$► DONATE: www.buymeacoffee.com/worstasianWe're doing it listeners, we're begging for money. Ben and Lingjie will continue to pump out that free content weekly but in case you feel inclined, we are accepting donations to help cover the costs of running the podcast. You get absolutely nothing extra out of this donation. No zoom chats, no bonus material, nada, zilch, zero. Just our gratitude. Please leave your social handle so we can thank you personally. Love you and thanks for listening! 감사합니다 & 谢谢你.PS: If you're a baller and donate $100 or more, we'll bring you on a future episode to join us for a segment of Ranting and Raving. Not joking, this is a real offer. Get your rant game ready :).► AMAZON: Referral link: https://amzn.to/3fsNCG1Support us for FREE by clicking the referral link above and making your normal Amazon purchases as you alway do. You get charged nothing extra. Amazon just gives us a small commission. Nothing to buy right now? No problem, click the link right now first and buy something later. This is the easiest way to support us with someone else's money, Jeff Bezos. -------------------------------------------OUR PODCAST RECORDING GEAR:► Rode Podmic Microphone: https://amzn.to/3h5HuUU► Zoom Podtrak P4 Recorder: https://amzn.to/3h8OX5z-------------------------------------------#bts #jhope #taiwan #spam #janetyang #danielcretton #durians #nancypelosi #asiannews #asianpodcasters #asianamerican #asian #asians #podcast #asiancomedy #asianmillennials #proudtobeasian #asianpride #asiancommunity #representationmatters #asianrepresentation #asianculture #asianlife #aapi #funny #comedy #flushing #asianmemes #yappie #asianmen #asianboy #asianguy #asiannews #asianstyle #millennials #stopasianhate #Asianqualifiers #veryasian #asianpopculture #asianexcellence #japan #japanese #korea #korean #kpop #china #chinese #chinatown #koreatown #ktown #ctownAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Welcome to Season 2, Episode 40!  We're fans of professional sumo in Japan. It's fun to watch and takes a great amount of skill. There's actually a relatively rich history of Asian American and Pacific Islanders in professional sumo. Although there aren't any impactful AAPI in the sport now, there have been some amazing wrestlers in the past including Konishiki, Akebono, and Mushashimaru, but they aren't the only ones. Those three peers may not have achieved the levels they did without Takamiyama. We provide a quick overview of professional sumo, but if you're interested in learning more, we recommend the new Sumo Primetime and Sumostew channels on YouTube, the NHK Sumo and Sumopedia webpages, and the Sumo Wrestling Fandom Wiki. We begin this episode by celebrating Janet Yang for her recent election to President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and Michelle Yeoh for her recent honorary doctorate from the American Film Institute. We close out this episode with a segment on the Origin of the term “Mongolian Spots.” For previous episodes and information, please visit our site at https://asianamericanhistory101.libsyn.com or social media links at http://castpie.com/AAHistory101. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, email us at info@aahistory101.com. Segments 00:25 Celebrating Janet Yang and Michelle Yeoh 02:29 AAPI in Professional Sumo 25:35 The Origin of Mongolian Spots

What is This Episode- Top of Show . JANET YANG BECOMES NEW ACADEMY PRESIDENT - 2:13 . TEASING OUR UPCOMING BIG WB EPISODE: The Tease/Why We're Doing It - 4:52 Joker 2 Gets Release Date, Confirms Gaga - 8:40 . STUDIO/INDUSTRY NEWS: Netflix Moves Rustin; Starts Its Oscars Run? - 12:58 Cinemark's Earnings are an Industry Microcosm - 15:36 Neon is Looking to Sell. Who's Buying? - 23:16 . FILM FESTIVAL NEWS: Glass Onion to Close BFI London - 31:34 NYFF Gets a Curious Centerpiece, and Armageddon Time - 33:30 TIFF's Announces More Selections, Including Midnight Madness Showings - 39:26 Dead For a Dollar Correction - 42:16 . BANSHEES OF INISHERIN TRAILER - 43:20 . MAKE THE CASE/BOX OFFICE REPORT: Bullet Train Review + Box Office Report - 47:27 Luck - 54:04 Thirteen Lives - 55:34 Prey - 59:14 (Prey, Hulu, and Why WB Should Be Paying Attention - 1:06:31) The African Desperate - 1:08:10 Bob's Burgers; Beavis and Butthead; RRR; Munich The Edge of War; The Girl in the Picture - 1:09:38 . . Contact Us/LEAVE US 5* REVIEWS! - 1:12:48 Words of Wisdom/What's Coming Next - 1:13:20

On episode 148 of The AwardsWatch Podcast, AwardsWatch Executive Editor Ryan McQuade is joined by Editor-In-Chief Erik Anderson, and AwardsWatch contributors Nicole Ackman and Josh Parham, who gather to talk about film festival news, answer listener questions, and discuss their thoughts on the HBO Max/Discovery + and the ongoing struggles within the streaming service landscape. Before the main topic this week, the group talk about some positive news stories that were announced this week, like the Academy naming producer Janet Yang at the new President of the Academy, our first look of Colman Domingo as Bayard Rustin in Rustin, TIFF announcing more films to their slate including WEIRD: The Al Yankovic Story, and NYFF will screen James Gray's Armageddon Time and Noah Baumbach's White Noise. But all of that news was overshadowed by the drama with the merger of HBO and Discovery and the cancellation of the Batgirl movie that was about to wrap and head to post production with a premiere on HBO Max. This promoted the gang to talk about the good, the bad, extreme discomforts, and even confusion of this topic of the moment and what it means for the streaming services and their competitors in the business going forward.   Next up our weekly listener questions, where they are asked if they think Babylon will play at the fall festivals or just release in theaters, as well as The Fabelmans Oscar chances going in based on how West Side Story did for Steve Spielberg last year. They also talked about if Amsterdam will be a contender this award season, if this year's acting nominations will be more diverse given the film landscape and choices become more diverse for consideration, and what their dream cast would be for a film. Lastly, the AW podcast team played a new game simple titled ‘The Percentages Game,' in which Ryan throws out a prompt and the group give him their percent chance that the prompt will happen. Topics include if Top Gun: Maverick will still be the highest grossing film of the year, if the Golden Globes will happen, if a female director will win Best Director for the third year in a row, and many more. It was a fun game and we would love if you sent in your own prompts for the next round by tweeting at either Ryan (@ryanmcquade77) or Erik (@awards_watch), and they will be answered on the next show. You can listen to The AwardsWatch Podcast wherever you stream podcasts, from iTunes, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify and more. This podcast runs 1h52m. Without further ado, let's get into it. Music: “Modern Fashion” from AShamaleuvmusic (intro) and “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro) used by permission

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://thecitylife.org/2022/08/02/janet-yang-elected-academy-president/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/citylifeorg/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/citylifeorg/support

00:00 When Did Intellectuals Stop Supporting The Free Market Of Ideas? https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=143526 02:00 Economist Ronald Coase, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Coase 22:00 John Milton's Areopagitica, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Areopagitica 38:00 Colleges that so want free speech they don't take federal funds, https://deanclancy.com/a-list-of-colleges-that-dont-take-federal-money/ 42:00 People are less interested in truth than in the battle between truth and falsehood? 43:00 Vaush: Illiterate Cringelord Styxhexenhammer666 Complains About "Woke" Climate Activism, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2urR8NnaesY 55:00 Stephen Kotkin: Putin, Stalin, Hitler, Zelenskyy, and War in Ukraine, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a7CDKqWcZ0 1:15:00 The Ukraine War as reality TV 1:20:00 Stephen Kotkin says the West is best 1:31:00 On Twitter, Russia has already lost the war 1:36:00 Kenneth Brown: Secret Trillionaires, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwDt_qggI4o 1:38:30 A three-part investigative series into the life & death of Carlos Castaneda, https://tricksterpodcast.com/ 1:40:00 Oliver Stone and his producer Janet Yang and Carlos Castaneda 1:46:00 Donna Bevan-Lee on love addiction 1:47:30 Under the Banner of Heaven, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_the_Banner_of_Heaven_(TV_series) Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSFVD7Xfhn7sJY8LAIQmH8Q/join https://odysee.com/@LukeFordLive, https://lbry.tv/@LukeFord, https://rumble.com/lukeford https://dlive.tv/lukefordlivestreams Listener Call In #: 1-310-997-4596 Superchat: https://entropystream.live/app/lukefordlive Bitchute: https://www.bitchute.com/channel/lukeford/ Soundcloud MP3s: https://soundcloud.com/luke-ford-666431593 Code of Conduct: https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=125692 https://www.patreon.com/lukeford http://lukeford.net Email me: lukeisback@gmail.com or DM me on Twitter.com/lukeford Support the show | https://www.streamlabs.com/lukeford, https://patreon.com/lukeford, https://PayPal.Me/lukeisback Facebook: http://facebook.com/lukecford Feel free to clip my videos. It's nice when you link back to the original.

I'm visiting my grandma and she's totally focused on a piece of paper. Naturally, I ask her what she's looking at.  She tells me they're letters from my grandfather to her and her to my grandfather during wartime. Some are torn, some are yellowed from age, some are typed and some handwritten. I notice there's a suitcase next to her filled with hundreds of these aged letters. I'm curious, so I ask if I can read one. “Oh no no no,” she quickly responds. “A few of these are a little too risqué for you.”  She promises that these letters will be mine one day…  when she's gone. I'll never forget that conversation with her that afternoon. My grandparent's love story during wartime, the legacy of that love, and the way they saw the world are encapsulated and preserved in those letters forever. My guest today on the Storytelling School Podcast knows and appreciates the power of the written word. Tricia Lee is not only recognized as one of the new top writers in Hollywood with many accolades for writing (and directing) to her name already, but her stories stick with you long after you hear them. If you're curious to know: How can a different perspective influence stories you've seen a lot of times already? How did a wrong number become the impetus behind an award-winning feature film script? What can the animal world teach us about humanity? Then listen in as we discuss family and life incidents, unlikely friendships, the impact of putting meaning and feeling into your stories, overcoming writer's block, and more! What you will learn in this episode: Why truth (not necessarily facts) is key to a great story How journaling can help you solve “blank page syndrome” Why your story matters, even if you think it doesn't Who is Tricia? Tricia Lee is an AAPI female filmmaker who grew up in Toronto, Canada. She specializes in creating both heart-warming and heart-breaking but also humorously uplifting films. With her Canadian perspective, she likes to tell stories that look at the American Dream and explore ideas around voicelessness, belonging, and shared humanity.  Tricia's Good Chance feature script, which is being produced by Leonardo DiCaprio's Appian Way and Janet Yang, was on the CAPE LIST and was also the Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope Screenplay Competition grand prize winner and the Cinequest Best Feature Screenplay winner. It was also a top 50 finalist in The Academy Nicholl Fellowship, a top 14 finalist for the Universal Studios Writer's Program, and was selected for the prestigious Producers Guild of America Power of Diversity Master Workshop. In addition to these accolades, Tricia has directed three award-winning features such as Blood Hunters and Silent Retreat, with the former sold to Hulu and presented at Cannes and the latter released theatrically across Canada and sold to NBC Universal's Chiller Network. Currently, she's the showrunner and sole writer of eight episodes of 108 Media's animated anthology, A Banquet for Hungry Ghosts. Soon, she will direct a biopic about William Hung (of American Idol fame) that she wrote with Don Handfield, and Tony and Tim Bui serving as producers. Links and Resources: Tricia Lee @tricialdirector on Twitter @tricialeedirector on Instagram @tricialeedirector on Facebook @tricialeedirector on LinkedIn Storytelling School Website @storytellingschool on Instagram @storytellingSchool on Facebook Skyrocket Your Success With Storytelling Masterclass

With the start of the ‘80s, Carlos Castaneda has now become the darling of the New Age movement.  But while New Agers are busy championing his past work, Castaneda has begun turning his sights to something new—a secretive project unlike anything he's done before. To secure the help needed, Castaneda opens up admission to his circle of followers. Hollywood producer Janet Yang soon becomes one of his most prized recruits.  After listening, be sure to check out:Episode Slide Show: bit.ly/3vecjyMOne Extra Thing: bit.ly/3vdhZcjDiscussion Thread: bit.ly/3xSWMG5www.tricksterpodcast.com Trickster: The Many Lives of Carlos Castaneda is a guppy production:Creator and Executive Producer: Frank HortonProducers: Ville Haimala, James Orestes, Yuval ShapiraCo-Producers: Kevin Barth, Steve Barilotti, Colin Stewart, Ybrahim Luna, Ana Djordjijevic, Dan Girmus, Celeste Cuevas, Collins Harris IV, Robert(a) Marshall, author of an upcoming biography of Carlos Castaneda, American Trickster, Katie Kidwell, Justin AierSenior Producer: Pablo VacaComposer: Ville HaimalaSound Designer and Mixer: Randy WardEditors: Frank Horton, with additional editing by Randy Ward, Paul Calo and Yuval Shapira We wish to acknowledge our debt of gratitude to the research of scholars, journalists and authors who have contributed tiles to the mosaic that is our project. Trickster is based, in part, on the following books and articles:Ultimas Noticias Sobre Carlos Castaneda by Arturo Granda, Conversations with a Young Nahual by Byron de Ford, Trickster Makes This World by Lewis Hyde, Ascent and Descent of the Sacred Mountain by Claudio Naranjo, Tezcatlipoca: Trickster and Supreme Deity edited by Elizabeth Baquedano, Fractured Times by Eric Hobsbawm, All Things are Possible Selected Essays by Lev Shestov, La increíble hisotoria de Carlos Castaneda by Ybrahim Luna, Castaneda's Journey and the Don Juan Papers by Richard De Mille, Peyote Hunt: The Sacred Journey of the Huichol Indians by Barbara Myerhoff, Theory in anthropology since the sixties by Sherry Ortner, Viscerality, faith, and skepticism: Another theory of magic by Michael Taussig, Introduction to the Teachings of Don Juan by Octavio Paz, A Thousand Plateaus by Deleuze & Guattari, A Hushed Death for Mystic Author by J.R. Moehringer, Missing Amalia by Matt Ward, Sonoran Fantasy or Coming of Age? by Ralph Beals, Tula: The Toltec Capital of Ancient Mexico by Richard A. Diehl, The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition by M.H. Abrams, Aztec Philosophy: Understanding a World in Motion by James Maffie, The Mirror of Magic: A History of Magic in the Western World by Kurt Seligmann, Filming Castaneda: The Hunt for Magic and Reason by Gaby Geuter, America by Jean Baudrillard, Carlos Castaneda: American Trickster by Robert(a) Marshall, Endeavors in Psychology by Henry A. Murray, Ronald Reagan The Movie: And Other Episodes in Political Demonology by Michael Rogin, Yucatan by Andrea De Carlo, On Lies, Secrets, and Silence by Adrienne Rich, The Invented Indian: Cultural Fictions and Government Policies by James A. Clifton, Fear of Freedom by Carlo Levi, The Labyrinth of Solitude: Life and Thought in Mexico by Octavio Paz, The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent by Lionel Trilling, Freedom & Its Discontents: Reflections of Four Decades of American Moral Experience by Peter Marin, The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker, Feet of Clay Saints, Sinners, and Madmen: A Study of Gurus by Anthony Storr, The Storyteller Essays by Walter Benjamin, Life of Dreams: Field Notes On Psi, Synchronicity, And Shamanism by Douglass Price-Williams, Ill Fares the Land by Tony Judt, The Adversary: A True Story of Monstrous Deception by Emmanuel Carrere ,High Culture: Drugs, Mysticism, and the Pursuit of Transcendence in the Modern World by Christopher Partridge, The Metamorphoses of Don Juan by Leo Weinstein, Bare-Faced Messiah by Russell Miller, Playing Indian by Philip J. Deloria, Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man: A Study in Terror and Healing by Michael Taussig, Shamans of the 20th Century by Ruth-Inge Heinze, Shamans Through Time: 500 Years on the Path to Knowledge edited by Jeremy Narby and Francis Huxley, The Human Career: The Self in the Symbolic World by Walter Goldschmidt, In Sorcery's Shadow by Paul Stoller, The Diabolic Root by Vincenzo Petrullo, Native Studies: American and Canadian Indians by John A. Price, The World of Time Inc by Curtis Prendergast, For Those Who Come After: A Study of Native American Autobiography by Arnold Krupat, Another Life by Michael Korda, The Contemporary Culture of the Cahita Indians by Ralph L. Beals, The American Adam by R.W. Lewis, A Magical Journey with Carlos Castaneda by Margaret Runyan, Slippery Characters: Ethnic Impersonators and Americans Identities by Laura Browder, The Theatre of Don Juan by Oscar Mandel, Impostors: Literary Hoaxes and Cultural Authenticity by Christopher Miller, The Sense of an Ending by Frank Kermode, Love and Death in the American Novel by Leslie Fiedler, The Powers That Be by David Halberstam, Melville's Quarrel With God by Lawrance Thompson, Shamanism Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy by Mircea Eliade, Extrasensory Ecology: Parapsychology and Anthropology by Joseph K. Long, On Phenomenology and Social Relations by Alfred Schutz, Seeing Castaneda by Daniel Noel, Prophetic Charisma by Len Oakes, Psychomagic: The Transformative Power of Shamanic Psychotherapy by Alejandro Jodorowsky, Death Valley and the Amargosa by Richard E. Lingenfelter   Trickster Podcast, LLC. All rights reserved.

There are plenty of environmental issues plaguing the world today. Whether it's climate change, water shortage or waste, it always boils down to one thing: consumption patterns. Prerna Shah, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Communication at the State University of New York at Buffalo, joins the podcast to share her and Dr. Janet Yang's research where they analyze whether communication can help dispel inaccurate beliefs on sustainable products and if it can drive people toward more positive behavior. 

Janet Yang is an Emmy Award and Golden Globe winning Hollywood producer. With a career that spans decades, Yang came to prominence as Executive Producer of the iconic The Joy Luck Club and most recently as Executive Producer of the Oscar-nominated animated feature Over The Moon. A true Hollywood legend! She details her instrumental role in introducing American films to China and vice versa early in her career and her ascent through the industry. Learn more about her at janetyang.com! Also don't forget to like and check out our Patreon! 

(01:07)  Sean gives a brief history of Asian Americans in Hollywood. (From Sessue  Hayakawa to Shang Chi)(06:26) Siyuan shares China's reaction to Crazy Rich Asians.(11:39) Siyuan shares China's sentiment on Shang-Chi(15:59) Sean hosts a trivia round on Asian Americans in film(21:58) Janet Yang joins the conversation(25:28) Lucia asks Janet: Asian Americans have gained significant ground in Hollywood over the last few years, but there is still room to improve. Where do we go from here?(32:25) Janet shares what type of stories she would like to see Asian Americans embody in the future(35:50) Janet talks to Siyuan about her experience producing the Netflix animated movie Over the Moon.(38:00) Janet shares her perspective on how co-producing movies with China has changed over the years, and why its becoming more difficult.(45:27) Lucia asks Janet what works and doesn't work with mixing Chinese and American cast in a movie(52:05) Janet ends the pod by providing some advice for young Asian Americans looking to break into HollywoodNOTESCheck out Janet Yang's work at her websiteWatch Over the Moon on Netflix Follow us on IG: @bundtobrooklynFollow us on Twitter: @bundtobrooklynQuestions? Requests? E-mail us @ b2b@1990institute.orgLearn more about the 1990 Institute

A bonus episode where we will delve into the making of the movie Leap, which came out in September 2020 on the Chinese national women's volleyball team. Director Peter Ho-Sun Chan and Academy governor-at-large Janet Yang, an award-winning producer, will talk about the incredible journey of the team, the evolution of China over the past few decades, and what it's like working with acclaimed Chinese actress Gong Li. This episode was originally produced by the Asia Society Museum and Asia Society Southern California. Middle Earth is made by China Compass Productions. If you have a China-themed cultural project, please get in touch! This show is part of the World of Chinese Magazine's podcast network. Order your latest copy at www.theworldofchinese.com or follow them on Wechat (ID : Theworldofchinese). With thanks to Sean Calvo for music support. 

  Learn more at ncuscr.org/CTH.   Starting with ping-pong diplomacy in 1971, cultural diplomacy has played a pivotal role in facilitating mutual understanding between the peoples of the United States and China. This event will gather leading cultural figures to discuss how, despite sometimes turbulent political and economic relations, food and film continue to reveal our shared humanity and connect us through culture.   On November 12, 2020, the National Committee held a discussion with Raymond Chang (Major League Baseball China), Lucas Sin (Junzi Kitchen), and Janet Yang (Janet Yang Productions) on the importance, challenges, and future of cross-cultural learning between the United States and China. NCUSCR Public Intellectuals Program fellow Alison Friedman (Performing Arts of West Kowloon Cultural District Authority) moderated the event.

'Master of None' writer and director Alan Yang discusses his new Netflix film 'Tigertail' and Hollywood's shift toward diverse storytelling with movie producer Janet Yang.

As we all battle the deadly pandemic, Asian Americans like Hollywood producer Janet Yang are also facing an onslaught of racism.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser continues his California series with a conversation with Janet Yang, one of the legends of the U.S.-China film world, and Michael Berry, a professor at UCLA and a leading expert on Chinese cinema. They discuss how politics and other factors have taken the shine off the initial promise of U.S.-China film collaboration, but how some bright spots remain. This episode is part of the California series of podcasts, made possible by the Serica Initiative.6:07: The Golden Horse and Golden Rooster Awards11:41: A “perfect storm” for Chinese film industry disruptions23:12: Sentiments of Chinese filmmakers in the current moment39:29: Censorship, film, and the era of hypersensitivityRecommendations:Janet: An animated movie that she created, based on a story about Cháng’é 嫦娥, the Chinese goddess of the Moon. Set to be released in fall 2020. Michael: The bands Plini and The Aristocrats. Kaiser: A book by Timothy C. Winegard, The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator.

Actor and producer Daniel Dae Kim and producer Janet Yang discuss their work promoting fresh storytelling with diversity at its center.

Our guest on the podcast today is is Dennis Lynch. Lynch is the head of Counterpoint Global at Morgan Stanley Investment Management. He joined Morgan Stanley in 1998 and has 25 years of investment experience. In his role, Lynch and his team run a number of growth equity strategies under the Morgan Stanley banner, including Morgan Stanley Institutional Advantage, Morgan Stanley Institutional Growth, and Morgan Stanley Institutional Discovery funds. All told, he and his team manage nearly $30 billion across their various mandates. On the strength of his track record, Morningstar named Lynch and his team Domestic Stock Fund Manager of the Year in 2013. Lynch received a B.A. in political science from Hamilton College and an MBA with honors and finance from Columbia University. We're pleased to have him join us today.BackgroundDennis Lynch bio Morgan Stanley Counterpoint Global Morgan Stanley Institutional Growth Fund Morgan Stanley Institutional Discovery Fund“A Closer Look at a Fund Manager of the Year” by Janet Yang; Morningstar; Feb. 3, 2014Team Members ReferencedKristian Heugh bioSam Chainani bio David Cohen bio Stan Delaney bio  Innovation vs. Mission CreepFacebook“Facebook stock jumps 12.6 percent as share lockup expires” by Alexei Oreskovic; Reuters; Nov. 14, 2012"Shared Reading" and ESG“Earth Has a Hidden Plastic Problem—Scientists Are Hunting It Down” by Andrea Thompson; Scientific American; Aug. 13, 2018 “ESG and Sustainable Investing Report” by Kristian Heugh and Marc Fox; Morgan Stanley Investment Management; Mar. 7, 2019 Disruptive Technologies and Forces“The EDGE: Automation/Robotics” by Morgan Stanley Counterpoint Global; Dec. 18, 2018 “Three Big Things: The Most Important Forces Shaping the World” by Morgan Housel; Collaborative Fund; Oct. 4, 2019 "What is a Tech Company?" by Ben Thompson; Stratechery; Sept. 3, 2019

Meet Janet Yang Rohr who is running to keep being the for Community Unit School District 203 Board of Education Member.  This is a short interview to help answer some frequently asked questions.  Please talk about her to your friends, share this video, and follow her on Face Book. Most importantly vote for her starting with early voting and mail in ballots on 2/21 through 4/2/19. Website - https://www.janet203.com Face Book - Jyangrohr Twitter - @jyangrohr

Meet Janet Yang Rohr who is running to keep being the for Community Unit School District 203 Board of Education Member.  This is her 2 minute stump speech.  Please talk about her to your friends, share this video, and follow her on Face Book. Most importantly vote for her starting with early voting and mail in ballots on 2/21 through 4/2/19. Website - https://www.janet203.com Face Book - Jyangrohr Twitter - @jyangrohr

Interview with Janet Yang Kim of Ezra & Janet, a wife, pastor, and student. She shares her story of God's redemptive process in her marriage and personal walk.

Janet Yang is the president of Janet Yang Productions, as well as the film production company, The Manifest Film Company. Janet also served as executive producer of the groundbreaking film directed by Wayne Wang for Disney, THE JOY LUCK CLUB, based on the bestselling novel by Amy Tan. This film has become an iconic work of familial bonds, and cultural assimilation and identity. She was inspired to be a link between the new cultural creators in China and the West after working in Beijing for a year as a “foreign expert” at the publishing arm of the government, Foreign Languages Press. Janet shares how she was able to find her sense of purpose and clarity by being her true self and going after what she believed in instead of following what she is supposed to do. She also shares her tips to help you in your own journey to self confidence. Check out thetaoofselfconfidence.com for show notes of Janet's episode, Janet's website, resources, gifts and so much more.

Robert Scheer sits down with Hollywood producer Janet Yang to discuss her connection to China and how it has influenced her career in filmmaking.

A conversation with producers Effie Brown and Janet Yang and directors Lena Khan and Pamela Tom for F This Weekly's first LIVE event: Women for the Win, a panel discussion held at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival’s Conference for Creative Content on Saturday, April 23, 2016 at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles. Special Thanks: David Magdael Abraham Ferrer Francis Cullado Milton Liu Patrick Epino Katrina Alarkon Sthanlee Mirador Steven Lam Featured Music: Uffie - Hot Chick Podington Bear - All Hot Lights

A panel discussion with Janet Yang (producer of Joy Luck Club and Shanghai Calling), Daniel Hsia (writer and director of Shanghai Calling), Bennett Pozil (Executive VP of EastWest Bank), and Chris Fenton (President of DMG Entertainment Motion Picture Group) on the globalization of Hollywood. Panelists: Janet Yang, Producer Throughout her life, Yang has distinguished herself by serving as a cultural ambassador, whether by bringing the creative and business worlds together, or by bridging East and West. As a film producer, Yang has worked with some of the most formidable directors and actors in the world, as well as discovering unique, often unheard voices and stories, and bringing them into the mainstream. Janet Yang holds a B.A. from Brown University in Chinese sutdies and an M.B.A. from Columbia University. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Ms. Yang has been named one of the "50 Most Powerful Women in Hollywood" by the Hollywood Reporter and is frequently named as one of the most prominent Asian-Americans. She has been featured in articles in the The New York Times, LA Times, Wall Street Journal, Variety, and Harper's Bazaar. Daniel Hsia, Writer and Director Daniel Hsia is a filmmaker and comedy writer who has worked on the television comedies Psych, Andy Barker, P.I., and Four Kings, and has sold original pilot screenplays to Sony Pictures Television, ABC Network, and USA Network. Shanghai Calling is his first feature film. Daniel's interest in the expat world was sparked when a close friend, a young man who had never been abroad, moved to China and began relating to Daniel the hilarious experiences of Americans living there. Convinced there was a compelling story to be told, Daniel spent two months roaming around Shanghai, interviewing locals and foreigners about their lives and absorbing every detail the city had to offer. Midway through Daniel's trip, the story for Shanghai Calling was born. Daniel is an alumnus of Stanford University and USC's Graduate Program in Film Production. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Mary, and dog, Jetpack. Bennett Pozil, Executive Vice President, East West Bank. Mr. Pozil has been a Banker for over 20 years and currently serves as an Executive Vice President at East West Bank where he manages the Bank's International Banking Group, Large Corporate Leveraged Finance, Syndications and Specialized Lending. As part of his role, Mr. Pozil oversees the development of the Bank's Entertainment Lending sector in the United States as well as China. Prior to joining East West Bank, Mr. Pozil served for 11 years as the Managing Director of the Los Angeles office for Natixis, the French Banking Concern. At Natixis, Mr. Pozil structured the financing of over one hundred motion pictures including Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero. Mr. Pozil is active in the Los Angeles community, serving on the Boards of the Music Center of Los Angeles and the Asia Society's Southern California Chapter. Chris Fenton, President, DMG Entertainment Motion Picture Group Chris Fenton is the President of DMG Entertainment Motion Picture Group and General Manager of DMG North America. He worked as a motion picture agent at the William Morris Agency from 1994 to 2002. Since then, he has been the chief architect in creating new business opportunities for DMG with North American based partners, and, most recently, has concentrated his efforts in forming partnerships with various Hollywood studios for the development, production, marketing, and distribution of various forms of international content in China.

A panel discussion with Janet Yang (producer of Joy Luck Club and Shanghai Calling), Daniel Hsia (writer and director of Shanghai Calling), Bennett Pozil (Executive VP of EastWest Bank), and Chris Fenton (President of DMG Entertainment Motion Picture Group) on the globalization of Hollywood. Panelists: Janet Yang, Producer Throughout her life, Yang has distinguished herself by serving as a cultural ambassador, whether by bringing the creative and business worlds together, or by bridging East and West. As a film producer, Yang has worked with some of the most formidable directors and actors in the world, as well as discovering unique, often unheard voices and stories, and bringing them into the mainstream. Janet Yang holds a B.A. from Brown University in Chinese sutdies and an M.B.A. from Columbia University. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Ms. Yang has been named one of the "50 Most Powerful Women in Hollywood" by the Hollywood Reporter and is frequently named as one of the most prominent Asian-Americans. She has been featured in articles in the The New York Times, LA Times, Wall Street Journal, Variety, and Harper's Bazaar. Daniel Hsia, Writer and Director Daniel Hsia is a filmmaker and comedy writer who has worked on the television comedies Psych, Andy Barker, P.I., and Four Kings, and has sold original pilot screenplays to Sony Pictures Television, ABC Network, and USA Network. Shanghai Calling is his first feature film. Daniel's interest in the expat world was sparked when a close friend, a young man who had never been abroad, moved to China and began relating to Daniel the hilarious experiences of Americans living there. Convinced there was a compelling story to be told, Daniel spent two months roaming around Shanghai, interviewing locals and foreigners about their lives and absorbing every detail the city had to offer. Midway through Daniel's trip, the story for Shanghai Calling was born. Daniel is an alumnus of Stanford University and USC's Graduate Program in Film Production. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Mary, and dog, Jetpack. Bennett Pozil, Executive Vice President, East West Bank. Mr. Pozil has been a Banker for over 20 years and currently serves as an Executive Vice President at East West Bank where he manages the Bank's International Banking Group, Large Corporate Leveraged Finance, Syndications and Specialized Lending. As part of his role, Mr. Pozil oversees the development of the Bank's Entertainment Lending sector in the United States as well as China. Prior to joining East West Bank, Mr. Pozil served for 11 years as the Managing Director of the Los Angeles office for Natixis, the French Banking Concern. At Natixis, Mr. Pozil structured the financing of over one hundred motion pictures including Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero. Mr. Pozil is active in the Los Angeles community, serving on the Boards of the Music Center of Los Angeles and the Asia Society's Southern California Chapter. Chris Fenton, President, DMG Entertainment Motion Picture Group Chris Fenton is the President of DMG Entertainment Motion Picture Group and General Manager of DMG North America. He worked as a motion picture agent at the William Morris Agency from 1994 to 2002. Since then, he has been the chief architect in creating new business opportunities for DMG with North American based partners, and, most recently, has concentrated his efforts in forming partnerships with various Hollywood studios for the development, production, marketing, and distribution of various forms of international content in China.

Shanghai Calling was screened at the USC Ray Stark Family Theatre on February 8, 2013, followed by a discussion with producer Janet Yang. Synopsis Shanghai Calling is a romantic comedy about modern-day American immigrants in an unfamiliar land. When an ambitious New York attorney is sent to Shanghai on assignment, he immediately stumbles into a legal mess that could spell the end of his career. But with help from a beautiful relocation specialist, a well-connected foreign businessman, a clever but unassuming journalist, and a street-smart assistant, Sam might just save his job, discover romance, and learn to appreciate the many wonders Shanghai has to offer. Janet Yang, Producer Janet Yang is a prodigious Hollywood producer who has a long, deep relationship with China. Yang began her career in Hollywood when she represented Universal, Paramount, and MGM/UA in brokering the first sale of American studio movies to China since 1949. Yang has been named one of the "50 Most Powerful Women in Hollywood" by The Hollywood Reporter, and has been featured in articles in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Variety. She has appeared on numerous TV and Radio shows throughout the US and China, including CCTV and Beijing TV. Yang's previous productions include: Carl Franklin's High Crimes, a military courtroom thriller starring Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman (20th Century Fox); The Weight of Water, directed by Academy Award-winner Kathryn Bigelow and starring Academy Award-winner Sean Penn (Lion's Gate Films); and Zero Effect, a cult classic starring Bill Pullman and Ben Stiller. Yang executive produced and is a recipient of both the Emmy and Golden Globe Awards for Best Made for Television Movie for the HBO movie Indictment: The McMartin Trial. Yang was also executive producer of the groundbreaking film directed by Wayne Wang, The Joy Luck Club, based on the best-selling novel by Amy Tan and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. From 1989 to 1996, Yang served as president of Ixtlan, the company she formed with Academy Award-winning writer/director Oliver Stone. At Ixtlan, she produced The People vs. Larry Flynt, which won the 1996 Golden Globe Awards for Best Director and Best Screenplay, and garnered Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Actor. Janet Yang holds a B.A. from Brown University in Chinese studies and an M.B.A. from Columbia University. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a member of the Committee of 100, and an advisory board member of Asia Society Southern California.

Shanghai Calling was screened at the USC Ray Stark Family Theatre on February 8, 2013, followed by a discussion with producer Janet Yang. Synopsis Shanghai Calling is a romantic comedy about modern-day American immigrants in an unfamiliar land. When an ambitious New York attorney is sent to Shanghai on assignment, he immediately stumbles into a legal mess that could spell the end of his career. But with help from a beautiful relocation specialist, a well-connected foreign businessman, a clever but unassuming journalist, and a street-smart assistant, Sam might just save his job, discover romance, and learn to appreciate the many wonders Shanghai has to offer. Janet Yang, Producer Janet Yang is a prodigious Hollywood producer who has a long, deep relationship with China. Yang began her career in Hollywood when she represented Universal, Paramount, and MGM/UA in brokering the first sale of American studio movies to China since 1949. Yang has been named one of the "50 Most Powerful Women in Hollywood" by The Hollywood Reporter, and has been featured in articles in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Variety. She has appeared on numerous TV and Radio shows throughout the US and China, including CCTV and Beijing TV. Yang's previous productions include: Carl Franklin's High Crimes, a military courtroom thriller starring Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman (20th Century Fox); The Weight of Water, directed by Academy Award-winner Kathryn Bigelow and starring Academy Award-winner Sean Penn (Lion's Gate Films); and Zero Effect, a cult classic starring Bill Pullman and Ben Stiller. Yang executive produced and is a recipient of both the Emmy and Golden Globe Awards for Best Made for Television Movie for the HBO movie Indictment: The McMartin Trial. Yang was also executive producer of the groundbreaking film directed by Wayne Wang, The Joy Luck Club, based on the best-selling novel by Amy Tan and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. From 1989 to 1996, Yang served as president of Ixtlan, the company she formed with Academy Award-winning writer/director Oliver Stone. At Ixtlan, she produced The People vs. Larry Flynt, which won the 1996 Golden Globe Awards for Best Director and Best Screenplay, and garnered Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Actor. Janet Yang holds a B.A. from Brown University in Chinese studies and an M.B.A. from Columbia University. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a member of the Committee of 100, and an advisory board member of Asia Society Southern California.