Click on the title or image to view the film on Kanopy.
In this funny, heartfelt story, Billi’s (Awkwafina) family returns to China under the guise of a fake wedding to stealthily say goodbye to their beloved matriarch—the only person that doesn’t know she only has a few weeks to live.
Click on the title or image to view the film on Kanopy.
It won’t take long to fall in love with the subject of Painted Nails, Van Hoang, a Vietnamese nail salon owner who serves an ethnically diverse group of working class women with acrylic nails and intricate airbrush designs. Through the course of the film, Van unintentionally becomes a contemporary Norma Rae or Erin Brockovich. Painted Nails brings us unprecedented insight into the personal nature of the political movement to regulate one of the fastest growing industries in the U.S. Major loopholes in the federal law dating back to 1938 allow the 50-billion-dollar cosmetics industry to put unlimited amounts of chemicals into personal care products with no required testing, monitoring of health effects, or labeling requirements.
Click the title or image to view the film on Kanopy.
When we think of Asian America, Cleveland is not the first place that comes to mind for most people. In GOOD LUCK SOUP, filmmaker Matthew Hashiguchi shows us why this often overlooked part of the country is as important as others in understanding the Asian American story. The journey for the Hashiguchi family begins with Matthew's grandmother, Eva, who moved to the Cleveland area following her family's internment during World War II. Though she and many other Japanese Americans were invited to the area, assimilating, working and living there was an ongoing struggle.
Click the title or image to view the film on Kanopy.
A 1984 documentary film about the first generation Japanese who immigrated to America at the turn of the 20th century. These pioneering immigrants tell their stories of struggle and triumph in the new land.
Click on the title or image to view the film on Kanopy.
KUKAN, a landmark color film that revealed the atrocities of World War II China to audiences around the world, was the first ever American feature documentary to receive an Academy Award in 1942 and was considered lost for decades.
Through a dynamic mix of verite, archival, and re-enactment footage, FINDING KUKAN creates an unforgettable portrait of a female filmmaking pioneer, and sheds light on the long history of racial and gender discrimination behind the camera, which continues to reverberate in Hollywood today.
Click on the title or image to view the film on Kanopy.
This award-winning documentary follows the lives and careers of four Asian-American rappers trying to break into hip-hop culture, which often treats them as outsiders. Sharing dynamic live performance footage and revealing interviews, these artists are driven to make the most skeptical critics into believers.
Click on the title or image to view the film on Kanopy.
A Chinese immigrant, who is a widow, faces the New Year with apprehension after it was foretold that it would be the year she would die. All of the things she wants to do before she dies come into focus, including seeing her daughter married and visiting China one last time to pay her respects.
Click on the title or image to view the film on Kanopy.
In the heart of Chinatown, New York, an ornery, chain-smoking, newly widowed 80-year-old Grandma (Tsai Chin) is eager to live life as an independent woman, despite the worry of her family. When a local fortune teller (Wai Ching Ho) predicts a most auspicious day in her future, Grandma decides to head to the casino and goes all in, only to land herself on the wrong side of luck…suddenly attracting the attention of some local gangsters. Desperate to protect herself, Grandma employs the services of a bodyguard from a rival gang (Corey Ha) and soon finds herself right in the middle of a Chinatown gang war.
Click on the image for more films streaming through Kanopy related to Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.
