Queer Asian cinema has always been part of the tapestry of American cinema, from works like Alice Wang’s Saving Face to the Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All At Once. Beyond the blockbuster films, independent filmmakers have been pushing forward stories that document the lived experiences of our community.
“Queer Asian Elders on Screen” is a curated selection of short films that highlight the stories of queer Asian elders from Cambodia to East LA. The featured filmmakers represent the diverse tapestry of stories that exist in the Asian, Pacific Islander, and Desi community that go beyond the trauma, the tropes, and the idea that our cultures clash with our LGBTQ+ identity. The goal is to represent the stories of elders, true and fictional, that have always existed in history, even if not formally captured on film.
“Queer Asian Elders on Screen” will take place at the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Advocate & Gochis Galleries on Saturday, October 26, 2024, from 6-7:30 p.m.
The post-screening panel with the award-winning filmmakers Mars Verrone, Tabitha Payne, Sundeep Morrison, and Patrick Lee will be moderated by Jireh Deng, co-founder of the Asian American Journalist Association’s LGBTQ affinity group.
This program is suitable for all ages.
Panelists
Jireh Deng (they/them) is a queer Asian American writer and filmmaker born and raised in the San Gabriel Valley. Their work appears in The Guardian, The Washington Post, Teen Vogue, NPR, Literary Hub, The Huffington Post, The Human Rights Campaign and more. Their short documentary about a transgender Asian American elder, MIA’S MISSION, screened at a dozen festivals including the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. Currently, they are in a year-long fellowship at the Los Angeles Times. They co-founded the Asian American Journalists Association LGBTQIA+ affinity group. You can follow them on Instagram or on X at @bokchoy_baobei.
Patrick G. Lee (they/them) is a queer diasporic Korean filmmaker, writer, and community organizer. Patrick is interested in building collaborative models of filmmaking that equip LGBTQ people of color with media-making skills. Their most recent project, Unspoken, won several festival awards and is educationally distributed by Third World Newsreel. Their NBC docuseries, “Searching for Queer Asian Pacific America,” won the NAMIC Vision Award for Long Form Digital Media. Patrick has written for Mother Jones, The Nation, ProPublica, The Atlantic, and more. Previously, Patrick worked with the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance to help build a vibrant network of queer Asian grassroots groups. They have been coping with pandemic times mostly by eating carbs.
Tabitha Payne (Producer of Golden Voice) is an organizer, researcher, and incoming Anthropology PhD student. Her award-winning Brown University undergraduate thesis, “Queer Histories of the Khmer Rouge Genocide,” used oral histories and archival research to explore the Cambodian Genocide as an unexpected moment for queer identity & community formation. Tabitha is a longtime collaborator with CamASEAN Youth’s Future, a grassroots LGBTQ and marginalized people’s activist group in Phnom Penh. She has won fellowships and awards with the Brown University Cogut Institute for the Humanities, the Pembroke Institute of the Humanities, the Fulbright Program, and more. Tabitha was born and raised in Phnom Penh, Cambodia to Filipino and American parents.
Mars Verrone (Director, Producer, Cinematographer, Editor of Golden Voice) is a filmmaker and musician from Los Angeles, CA, now based in Brooklyn, NY. As a first-time producer, their feature documentary UNION, (dir. Stephen Maing, Brett Story) premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival in the U.S. Documentary Competition and won a special jury prize for “The Art of Change.” They are an NBC Original Voices Fellow, PGA Create Fellow, and Brown Girls Doc Mafia Sustainable Artist Fellow. Their work has been supported by Sundance Institute, Ford Foundation, Field of Vision, and the International Documentary Association, among others.
Sundeep Morrison (they/them) is an award-winning Queer Non-binary Canadian Panjabi Sikh actor, writer, and director. Recently, Sundeep was recognized as an emerging Indian Filmmaker during the world premiere of their short film Your Love at the KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival. Sundeep also received the award for Best Drama at United Solo (2022) and was awarded the Disruptors TV Writing Fellowship (2021) and was proud to be part of the Trans and Non-Binary cohort. A graduate of the American Musical and Dramatic Academy New York, their work focuses on social justice, sexuality, and gender. A child of Panjabi Sikh immigrants, Sundeep pursues their passion as a storyteller to explore the beautiful and, at times, painful complexities of growing up with deep Eastern roots in a Western world.
This program is organized by Jireh Deng and is co-presented with the Los Angeles LGBT Center as part of Circa: Queer Histories Festival 2024, presented by One Institute.
The Los Angeles LGBT Center is a safe and welcoming place where the LGBTQ+ community finds help, hope, and support when it is needed the most.