Last year, HBO started a short film competition for Asian American and Pacific Islander filmmakers, APA Visionaries, inviting applicants to submit films that explore themes of home that address “such timely issues as belonging, identity and culture through the lens of the APA experience.”
The network announced this week its three finalists for this year’s competition. The films will be screened, and the winner announced, at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival in May.
Finalists are: Maritte Go, whose short “Remittance,” inspired by the story of her immigrant family, follows a Filipino cruise worker who receives a call about her son in the hospital; Huay-Bing Law, which chronicles the experience of a young Chinese woman at her husband’s graduation in the 1960s in “June”; and Feng-I Fiona Roan, whose “Jiejie” paints a portrait of two sisters who are raised by a single immigrant mother in Los Angeles in the ’90s.
“HBO is proud to not only be part of the dialogue about media diversity but also leading new conversations around it,” HBO Multicultural Marketing VP Jackie Gagne said in a statement. “With APA Visionaries, we are empowering communities through representation while celebrating great artistic talent.”
