May is Asian Heritage Month, and the National Film Board of Canada has a channel about Asian Communities in Canada. The municipality of Richmond, BC is almost considered the “Chinese” place to do business in the Pacific Northwest because of all the warehouses and operations headquartered here. But there’s more to this side of the industry, or a feature about just one nation. There’s other countries to help make this world for what it is. The cultural influences, the history and arts are part of a greater influential factor.
In America, the Los Angeles Pacific Asian Film Festival will soon take place for even more media introspectives. We’ve posted a guide in what to see there in the prior article.
The NFB has curated nearly 30 short and feature-length documentaries and animated films from the vaults to celebrate the culture, arts, history and countless social contributions of Canadians of Asian descent. They have works like Julia Kwan’s feature-length documentary Everything Will Be. This work captures a significant moment of time in Vancouver’s Chinatown, with the influx of condos and new, non-Chinese businesses. The film follows a year in the life of several Chinatown denizens, including a 90-year-old Chinese newspaper street vendor and a second-generation tea shop owner, as they navigate this community in flux. Other must-see films include Baljit Sangra’s Because We Are Girls and Karen Lam’s Sandra Oh, Inspiration.
In the animated front, we at Otakunoculture have this selection of works that looks at Asian Heritage Month differently. They are:
All of these works are free to stream.
