[WEBCAST] Meet the Directors: PBS and WETA's 'Asian Americans'
VIEW EVENT DETAILSJoin us for a special Asian and Pacific Islander American Heritage month conversation with Geeta Gandbhir and Grace Lee, two of the directors/producers behind the PBS and WETA's 5-hour groundbreaking documentary Asian Americans, chronicling the contributions, and challenges of Asian Americans, the fastest-growing ethnic group in America. Personal histories and new academic research will cast a fresh lens on U.S. history and the role Asian Americans have played in shaping it. As Asian Americans have become the target of prejudice due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the series serves as a reminder of not only the contributions of Asian Americans to the social fabric of the U.S., but also that they are very much a part of it.
Asian Americans will premiere on May 11th.
Speakers
Geeta Gandbhir has over nineteen years of varied experience in the fields of film, television and animation. She has been nominated for three Emmy Awards, and has won two, and her films have won one Academy Award and three Peabody Awards. Recently, her film God is the Bigger Elvis with director Rebecca Cammisa was nominated for the 2012 Oscars. Her most recent works include: Whatʼs Going On: The Life Of Marvin Gaye for PBS’ “American Masters” and Amy Rice and Alicia Sam's feature documentary By the People: The Election of Barack Obama, executive produced by Edward Norton and released by HBO, for which she won her second Emmy Award, and Music By Prudence, a documentary produced by HBO and Director Roger Ross Williams, which won the 2010 Oscar for Best Short Documentary. She recently completed a feature-length documentary entitled Budrus by Just Vision Films, the directors and producers of the award-winning film Control Room.
Grace Lee is an independent producer, director and writer working in both narrative and non-fiction film. She directed the 2014 Peabody Award-winning documentary American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs, which The Hollywood Reporter called “an entertainingly revealing portrait of the power of a single individual to effect change.” The film premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival where it won its first of six audience awards before its broadcast on the PBS documentary series “POV”. Her previous documentary The Grace Lee Project won multiple awards, broadcast on the Sundance Channel and was called “ridiculously entertaining” by New York Magazine and “a funny but complex meditation on identity and cultural expectation,” by Variety.
Tom Nagorski (moderator) is Executive Vice President of Asia Society. He joined the Asia Society following a three-decade career in journalism — having served most recently as Managing Editor for International Coverage at ABC News. He serves on Princeton University’s Advisory Council for the Department of East Asian Studies, and the Advisory Board of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
This program is made possible in partnership with the Center for Asian American Media and WETA.
Asia Society celebrates Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in May and beyond — join us for programs, interviews, and content that celebrate the influence of Asian Pacific Americans on culture, politics, and society.