Documentary filmmaker Steven Okazaki is among the 2009 inductees to the SF State Alumni Hall of Fame. The Academy Award winner was honored at a campus ceremony May 22.

Okazaki (B.A., Cinema, ’76) earned his fourth Academy Award nomination earlier this year for the documentary short “The Conscience of Nhem En.” He won an Oscar and a Peabody Award for his 1990 short subject documentary, “Days of Waiting,” about a Caucasian artist who accompanied her Japanese American husband to a World War II internment camp. Okazaki’s “White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki” was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and won an Emmy in 2007. Other films nominated for Academy Awards were “Unfinished Business” and “The Mushroom Club.”

The other inductees to the SF State Alumni Hall of Fame this year are former football player Bill Baird and Darlene Iskra, the first woman to command a Navy ship.

The SF State Alumni Hall of Fame recognizes alumni who have earned the respect of their peers through professional, cultural and civic achievements. Previous inductees include San Francisco Food Bank Director Paul Ash, actress Annette Bening, E-LOAN Co-founder and CEO Chris Larsen, former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, and physician and astronaut Yvonne Cagle.

Many immigrant families worked and lived behind the scenes at historic Bay Meadows in San Mateo, recently demolished to make way for luxury housing and high-end commercial space. The story of one of these families, during Bay Meadows’ final season, is told in a new documentary by Cinema alumna Tricia Creason-Valencia.

“Also Ran” tells the story of the Muñoz-Martinez family, undocumented immigrants, in their “Also Ran” is featured at the exhibition “Journeys” at Triton Museum of Art in Santa Clara through July 19.

An award-winning filmmaker, Creason-Valencia (M.F.A., ’02) is one of three recipients of the 2009 Arts Council Silicon Valley Artists Fellowship Awards. Creason-Valencia and her SF State classmates Meadow Holmes and Amy Happ founded Flacafilms, a production company that has made films exploring women’s issues, religion and adoption.

Video

The Cinema Department office will be open Monday-Friday, 11am to 2pm starting May 26 and ending August 21, 2009.
Please see the calendar for holidays, deadlines, and events

American feature films often portray the Chinese as exotic and devious characters—or simply the “other.” An award winning documentary by Cinema alumnus Arthur Dong chronicles the full gamut of Chinese representation in Hollywood. “Hollywood Chinese” premieres on PBS’ “American Masters” series at 9pm May 27.

The 90-minute film features interviews with candid interviews and back lot stories from artists in front of and behind the camera, including Joan Chen, James Hong, David Henry Hwang, Nancy Kwan, Ang Lee, Christopher Lee, Justin Lin, Luise Rainer, Amy Tan and Wayne Wang.

“Hollywood Chinese” won the 2007 Golden Horse Award, China’s top cinematic honor. It is the latest documentary by Dong (B.A., ’82) to inspire social awareness and change. Among his best-known is “Licensed to Kill,” about the psyche of killers of gay men. While attending SF State, Dong made a film about his mother’s immigration to America from China, “Sewing Woman,” which was nominated for a 1984 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

The latest short film by Cinema alumna and Lecturer Anjali Sundaram is part memoir, part fiction. Set against the first Persian Gulf War in 1990, “Canada” is the story of a young, half-Indian girl named Jaina and her broke, free-spirited, flaky mother as they attempt to move from Northern California to Vancouver in a Volkswagen bug.

Sundaram’s personal life has a strong influence on her work. Her mixed ethnicity and peripatetic childhood somewhat mirror the experiences of Jaina in “Canada,” written and directed by Sundaram (M.F.A., ’07). The 16-minute film screened in April at the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles and last year at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival.

Outwardly, very little happens in the film’s 24-hour time span—the car breaks down, gets fixed and the family gets back on the road. The drama is psychological, augmented by the confined space of the car and a transient lifestyle. As a result, Jaina’s family is highly dependent on one another and barely connected to the outside world.

“Canada” is Sundaram’s first narrative work, having previously focused on experimental and documentary films. An earlier experimental piece, “Buckle My Shoe,” won Slamdance’s global Anarchy online competition and screened at the Slamdance Film Festival in 2002. She is also co-editor of the 1991 book “A Decade of War: El Salvador Confronts the Future,” published by Monthly Review Press.