VC CLASSICS

Directed by Alan Kondo

This black-and-white documentary weaves scenes of Japanese American poet and professor Lawson Inada’s life with his writing. Titled after one of his poems, I TOLD YOU SO follows Inada to Fresno, California for a childhood reunion.

Directed by Linda Mabalot

Produced to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of the statewide Asian Pacific Student Union (APSU), this collaboration between activists/filmmakers Linda Mabalot and Stann Nakazono observes the rise of a new generation of Asian Pacific American student activists in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 1978 Bakke Decision.

Directed by Eddie Wong

Capturing the all-American fervor of parade competition, CHINATOWN 2-STEP profiles the Los Angeles Chinese Drum and Bugle Corps, an important fixture of the Chinese American community.

Directed by Duane Kubo

The vibrancy of the City of Los Angeles is expressed by an intricate interweaving of optical print effects and an eclectic soundtrack. This experimental narrative piece offers an abstract view of a contemporary city and the people who inhabit it.

Directed by Arthur Dong

CLAIMING A VOICE: THE VISUAL COMMUNICATIONS STORY is a one-hour documentary chronicling the twenty-year history of the first arts group dedicated to productions by and about Asian Pacific Americans.

Directed by Duane Kubo

Celebrates the music and influences of contemporary Asian American culture on Dan Kuramoto, June Okida Kuramoto, and Johnny Mori — three musicians who make up the core of the jazz fusion band Hiroshima.

Directed by Robert C. Winn

The film offers a moving tribute to the working class roots of the Asian American experience, focusing on the resurgence of grassroots political activism among the City of Angels’ Asian, Latino, and other working class families.

Directed by Linda Mabalot

Produced in collaboration with The International Channel, HIROSHIMA...TWENTY YEARS LATER brings audiences up to date with the three principal members of the jazz fusion band Hiroshima in the years since they were profiled in Duane Kubo's classic 1975 documentary CRUISIN' J-TOWN.

Directed by Robert A. Nakamura, Duane Kubo

Capturing the contributions and hardships of Japanese Americans from the turn-of-the-20th century, the film centers on Oda a feisty issei and elderly single laborer living in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo.

Directed by Pat Lau, Glen Iwasaki

Dr. Neon W. Tungsten, a scientist at Kilowattage Fluorodynamis, has isolated himself from the real world in his cluttered laboratory. Although he has the ability to work with high-tech devices and gadgets, Dr. Tungsten relies on his robot to help with mundane tasks.

Directed by Alan Ohashi, Alan Takemoto

Modern kite maker Tom Joe seeks to preserve the craft of kite making as well as the traditional Asian folklore behind it.

Directed by Linda Mabalot

Director Linda Mabalot's narration, combined with archival images, stop-motion animation, water-color paintings, and poignant interviews with Filipino American older immigrants distinguishes MANONG as a pioneering introduction to an Asian Pacific American community whose narrative mirrors other immigrant groups who arrived to fill a void in America's labor and service sectors.

Directed by Robert A. Nakamura

MANZANAR foregrounds the central California Japanese American internment camp the director called “home” during his childhood. Director Nakamura recollects his childhood experiences at Manzanar as he comes to terms with how internment has affected his adult life.

Directed by Takashi Fujii

Centered around the Carson, CA-based youth development center of the same name, OMAI FA'ATASI weaves interviews with youth organizer Simi Potasi and others to present a portrait of a unique Southern California community whose family and spiritual values are challenged by the pitfalls of contemporary American culture.

Directed by Supachai Surongsain

Two Thai men, one a college student and the other a clerk for a local grocery store, play cat-and-mouse with the INS while struggling to make ends meet in Los Angeles.

Directed by Eddie Wong

PIECES OF A DREAM tells the story of Asian Pacific American life and history on the Sacramento River delta.

Directed by Visual Communications

SOMETHING’S ROTTEN IN LITTLE TOKYO, a 1977 VC organizational production headed by co-founders Duane Kubo and Eddie Wong, takes a rigorous look at the economic, political, and social forces that threatened Los Angeles Little Tokyo with extinction in the mid-1970s.

Directed by John Esaki

STAND UP FOR JUSTICE is based on the true story of a Mexican American high school student who stood up for his Japanese American friends during WWII— by choosing to live in confinement with them at Manzanar concentration camp.

Directed by Pat Lau, Don Miller

Set in L.A.’s Chinatown neighborhood, TO BE ME, TONY QUON offers a vivid depiction of Tony’s world, culminating with the food, firecrackers and lion dances of Chinese New Year.

Directed by Takashi Fujii, Foe Alo, Jr.

A follow-up to the groundbreaking Visual Communications documentary OMAI FA'ATASI: SAMOA MO SAMOA, this fictionalized account of Vaitafe Futu, a gifted Samoan youth who travels from Pago Pago to pursue an education in Los Angeles offers a wholistic portrait of a newer Asian Pacific American community.

Directed by Robert A. Nakamura

Robert Nakamura's WATARIDORI: BIRDS OF PASSAGE stands as one of the quintessential documentary portraits celebrating the legacy of the issei, or first-generation Japanese Americans.

Directed by Eddie Wong

WONG SINSAANG is a lyrical portrait of the Won’g father, a proprietor of a dry-cleaning business in Los Angeles’ Silver Lake neighborhood.

Directed by John Esaki

The thirty-year acting career of the late Yuki Shimoda reflects the achievement and career disappointments that faced the minority actor. Only offered limited roles by the Hollywood establishment during certain points of his career, Shimoda persevered on for challenging dramatic roles