SHORT WAVES: STORIES SHAPING OUR COMMUNITY
ABOUT SHORT WAVESShort Waves: Stories Shaping Our Community is BAAFF's screening of short videos in honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in May. The screening featured shorts collected from the Open Call. The top submissions were selected by a panel of distinguished judges at the event. The winner was determined by public vote of the finalists. The winner of the Short Waves Competition received automatic acceptance into the upcoming Boston Asian American Film Festival.
Asian Pacific Americans have long been making waves in all aspects of American life, but their stories have often been lost in general U.S. discourse. “Short Waves: Stories Shaping Our Community,” hopes to bring light to these stories through locally made, community driven short films about the Asian American experience and community. |
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Congratulations to our 2019 Short Waves Winner!
Afterschool » Memie Osuga Two sisters wait for their mom to come home afterschool. |
participants
Please be advised that some films may contain language and/or visual that may not be appropriate for children.
Root | 根 » Xingyu Gu
Thousands of miles from home, a girl finally finds her comfort. |
Hell is the Family » Leanne Fan
Asian daughter trying to help her dad figure out how to get to the next stop on a road trip. Mom wants to go somewhere else. There’s no signal on the phone so she resorts to using the car’s GPS. Family tension ensues. |
In Good Company: Backstage Vietgone » Rob Chen
A backstage look into the cast of the play, Vietgone by Qui Nguyen, and their journey from tech rehearsals to preview night. |
Reborn » Petra Deeter
This film portrays the desperate and silent cry by victims of domestic violence who are trapped in abusive relationships, unable to leave because the abusers threaten and can kill the victims and the victims’ children. Victims often fantasize about being reborn into a new life, on that is unsilent, unbroken and free. |
JUDGES
![]() Tak Toyoshima is the creator/illustrator of Secret Asian Man, a comic strip that highlights the nuanced, hilarious, and often tragic dynamics of race relations in America. He is also the creative director of Rustic Marlin, a home decor manufacturer specialized in handcrafted signs and furniture.
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![]() Anisha Asundi is a South Asian feminist activist with a passion for amplifying and uplifting marginalized voices. Her research and practical work lies in the foundations of inclusion and equity, particularly with the goal to increase the wealth of research on women, people of color, LGBTQ communities, and low income populations. She is a member of The Genki Spark, an Asian women’s taiko drumming group, and is a volunteer & board member for the Asian American Resource Workshop.
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![]() After graduating from Boston Latin School, Ken Eng left for New York in 1994 to study film at the School of Visual Arts. In 2006, Kokoyakyu: High School Baseball, his film about the famous Koshien Tournament in Japan was nationally broadcast on PBS as part of POV's 19th Season. In 2007, Ken was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship to launch My Life in China.
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