Behind it and then an evolving project we have featured before. The power of elective memory and media that brings to life the experience of asianamerican communities from across the country spanning six decades. All that on our show today. We are big fans of cam fest and the center for Asian American media here which is launching cam fest march 9th with themes of internment, exclusion, identity were politics and cultural presentation. Joining me is the festival and exhibitions director who for this past decade has played a big part in cam festival. Give us an idea of where we are 35 years now where is cam fest at right now. We wanted to use this time to really reflect back at our festival. Weve had so many decades of just outstanding story telling. One of the big things that we wanted dodd is to bring backfill mz that have resonated well with our audience and keep asking us to bring back. But were using the 35th anniversary to map out the future and as you mentioned before we have some amazing films but new types of media being made, web series, interactive programs and we want to make sure that as Asian Americans on the forefront of story telling we want to make sure thats reflected at the festival. There was a time when maybe sort of those different forms presented a risk in terms of wheth whether traditionalists want to see but now it seems like it has to be a part of it. I think theres a puritity in it and going to a Film Festival and going the standard stuff. At cam fest were moving forward and we want to make sure we respect the media but have an immersive experience. One of the things we deal with is people being able to get media much easier on line and every program that we curate we want to make sure its dynamic and something you cant replicate at home. You talked about and i mentioned earlier the themes for this year. Why these themes and what how are they kind of represented in the festival . Its interesting a lot of the key themes and more of the serious topics that we devlve i, the Political Climate has gotten a lot more tense and the themes that were talk about in the themes are on the forefront of the dialogue thats happening in the nation. A lot of our films from opening to closing talks about immigration and how thaem pacts not only asianamericans but all people. We have films about the chinese exclusion act which is the only legislation in the u. S. That barred a group of people based on ethnicity and race. The intern mts ments of japaneseamericans. It is fun but we want to make sure its an exciting experience and that people walk away inspired and motivate dodd something. A slight Silver Lining to the cloud these days is a lot of this seemed historical at one time but now they seem contemporary. How about the kind of filmmakers that youre getting . We have a mix. Were redefining whos a storyteller. At first it used to be you make a film and thats it. We wanted to break down the borders of who tells stories. Even if you have home movies, you can be i storyteller by doing that. So at our festival its an immersive experience and we want to make sure when you come you get to meet filmmakers but also performers, artists, culinary exper experts, we have all of that mixed together in an 11day festival. It does make it an artistic and cultural event. Right. Youre going to come back later and talk about more of the exhibits. If youll have me. Again, cam fest is celebrating its 35th year showcasing film, music, food from innovative asian and asianamerican artists starting march 9th. Check the website for more details. And stay with us, dancing through life, the dorothy coy story is up next. Everything we stock at Grocery Outlet has crazy low prices. Do you know how we do it . How . 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With me right now is a longtime friend and former colleague rick wong. Hes a wellknown bay area sports castor and the Creative Force behind the film. Great to see. You dont get all choked up about seeing me again, robert great to be here. Give me an idea, before we see a little bit of it, what inspired you to do this . Ive known dorothy for about 20 years now, and i did a short video on her about seven years ago. But in may of 2016, i was incite varietied to her 99th Birthday Party and at that time i said, you know what . I need to make a more indepth documentary about this wonderful woman. You did a great job. Lets take a look at it. Dorothy was known as the asian ginger rogers. Starting in the 1930s, she teamed up with paul wayne to become the most famous asian dance couple in america. Oh i loved it when youre dancing its like youre in another world. So i enjoy it so much that the public enjoys it. At a time when asianamericans were often discriminated against, toy and wing, breaking stereotypes by touring throughout the u. S. Appearing on broadway and in hollywood films. One thing looking at the black and white, reminding us of so many images ive seen of other africanamerican performers and latinamerican performers it reminded you they were a part of that culture i didnt see enough of this growing up. Another documentary that came out a few years back was forbidden city and i enjoyed that one too. Theres Something Special about it, and when i saw her perform, i dont know if you noticed, she danced on her toes too, almost like a ballet in a way. But she has incredible legs. She has her own athletic style of dancing. Why did you feel you wanted to tell this story more about her, the times, or a little bit of both . A little bit of all those things. Ive always enjoyed history. Dorothy was a real pioneer for enter taint meant so i feel like did i most of these things that people didnt. I was drawn to that. And i think people need to be educated about this wonderful women. And as a filmmaker and a jurn list, the idea to take someones story that people might not have known about and you tell that story and get it out there, thats got to be really rewarding. Its great satisfaction. I was in seattle this past weekend and after the screening of the dorothy story, several people said id never heard of this woman before. And thats the thing, i love educating people about this figure back in the 30s and what she did. You won an award in l. A. I know. Thank you for bringing that up. It was named best documentary at the asians Film Festival in los angeles. So youre moving this direction you want to do more . I do want to do more. Its been fun. Ive been in the bay area doing sports casting for 30 years and that has given me a second wind, i guess, or a Second Chapter in my life. Were doing longer reporting of course in tv, minute and a half stories, two minutes is the longest. Here you have as long as you pretty much want to. So thats been fun and going to the different festivals, meeting the different people who put these films together, kind of a whole new world is opened up to me right now. And caamfest is the perfect place. Well, its San Francisco and she lives in oakland so a lot of people that will be going to caamfest may have heard of dorothy back in the day or maybe their parents went to forbidden city and seen her dance. And what better way to celebrate her 100th birthday. We are planning to celebrate may 28, 2017. Were planning to have it at the great star theater in china town and, of course, we hope dorothy will there. We hope shell be at the showing too at the new Parkway Theater when this airs on march 17th. Maybe shell dance for us. Maybe too. Im getting choked up about it all right. Rick, thanks for being here. Thank you for having me. Rick dancing through life will be screened center stage shorts march 18th at 3 10 00 p. M. At the new Parkway Theater on four 70 four 24th street in local land. Go to nbcbayarea. Com for more details. Next up dancer la nora lee. Stay with us. Welcome back. One of the highlights of caamfest is expected to be a film light. Joining us is la nora lee whos been a dancer, chore og graph if i for almost 20 years in San Francisco, los angeles, and new york. She was an artist fellow at museum, nyu, and currently at Dance Mission theater. She is known for pushing the envelope of largescale dance performances. Its great to have you here. Great to be here. Tell us a little bit about this film and how does your dance experience sort of play into it . Sure. This file light is inspired by the experiences of a lady who came over to the United States from china and she was brought over to be a servant and end up being a servant for several years. She didnt know that she was not get paid for several years and ended up seeking help. We used to call it enden tured servitude. Thats right. Tell us a little bit about what were going to see in this clip. Were going to see a zheen we shot in new york city china town in columbus park. It leads with a due yet between two of the main characters. All right. Lets take a look and then well talk about it after. All right. You know, you know as well as i do that dance is such an expressionist form but its also so visceral. How difficult is that intertwining that with film making and making sure the story gets across . Ive been working with it for many years and what drew me into dance was the imbodiment of being able to express a certain amount of compassion, to be able to communicate and speak without having to talk. So its its like story telling in motion. I think what is film something you had much experience with before . Ive been collaborating a filmmaker who directed and he edited this film. So the last few years weve been working in this sin matic fashion capturing dance a lot of time with some Historical Context that i had done research on. So i think combining this element of movement and the arts with historical narratives, i think that that has affected communities that ive been a part of for many, many generations. Its been a fascinate process. Why did you pick this story . Why did you want this one to be the one that you put on film . Well, i had been doing research on Human Trafficking of Chinese Women in the late 1800s and early 19 hundreds since 2012, and i started here in San Francisco in the bay area. And then i had lived in new york for several years and was curious to know about the stories and narratives that happened there. And decide to Research Starting in 2013 and then ended up developing this piece into a much larger project. How difficult was it for you to do the filming, to become a filmmaker even in collaboration with someone and having dance so much a part of what you do, how difficult was it to meld it . How did you decide to balance the two . Well, i was very fortunate to be in collaboration with him because my role served as a producer of the film as well as i core og graph if i director. So i set up the scenes and the movement. I worked with the dancers for quite a while and he came in with his sin maing tographers and really was able to see how to capture the story. Yes. So really he developed temperature from a sin matic point of view. He has a long history of experimental film making, experimental jazz music. So its a combination of his music as well in the piece. From what i saw, sometimes the way you shoot dance movements and things like that makes such a difference, but you want to make sure people get out of it when they watch it . I think a sense of compassion for folks who really often times when immigrants get taken advantage of, i think we sometimes hear that are as an outside story or feel like well we dont really necessarily have connection to it, its the other, you know, and its easy to have a distance from those experiences. So i would like to be able to share these stories and experiences through a compassionate lens. And that kind of connection. Right. Sounds pretty contemporary to me these days. Thank you for being here. Thank you so much. Screening of light will be on march 11th at gray area on 2665 Mission Street in france. Coming up, one of the most interesting and presentations at caamfest, memories to light as well as random action of legacy, so stay with us. Delsym helps control the impulse to cough for 12 hours. Which means, youre controlling your cough on your morning commute. And later when youre joking with beth. Even when most cough medicines stop, delsym is still working. Delsym. The 1 12hour cough medicine. Grwow means you savehome of50 or more. Gs. There are three stages of wow denial. Is this price right . Acceptance. And boooyah. Wait for it. Boooyah has three os. Grocery outlet bargain market stop by our bar bonanza event and save up to 80 and our next presentations for Caamfest Center around home movies, one we featured before and also random acts of legacy . We have the director for the center. It plays sunday, march 19th and we want to make sure that people know that. Yeah. Give me an idea here, first of all, we talked about before home movies its amazing, right . We always say every person has a story to tell and this really kind of brings that home. I mentioned this before, but we want to redefine who our Story Tellers at our festival through memories to light which say yearround initiative through caamfest. What we do is were proving through these home movies weve been around for decades and every city and through this what we love to do is we put a call out for families who have 16millimeter, 8millimeter film and well digitize those for you so that you have your family as stories. But then what we do with those films is we work with a local artist, a my sigs, a spoken word artist and create a new narrative through these home movies. Weve done this for a few years now and every year it sells out and this year were going to have Live Performances with it. Live performances with it that should be interesting. We do want to encourage people to participate if they can and that is people might think that theyve got mundane scenes or scenes that whats exciting about this are something dramatic about this, just the idea that its real people comes across in these scenes. Absolutely. And one of the home movies we have is Christmas Morning and although we may not think thats special, seeing this from the 50s asianamerican family huddled around a tree, thats beautiful. And it becomes something you cant represent date indicate at home. What is the difference between the 2 different presentations. Every year we take a new group of home movies and we do pair them well ditch artists as well. So this one is brand new. What are some of the kind of pairing that are going to happen that you want to make sure that people sort of get an idea of why they should come and see it . Well, from memories to light the base of that is home movies and how rich they are. Theres a film that were screening called random acts of legacy who takes these chinese American Home movies of their first years here who have migrated to the u. S. And through his story telling really changes the narrative and kind of looks at it through a different lens. And through memories to light and through this powerful documentary we hope people will come out and learn that home movies is a powerful tool and thing that we can share with others. Ive had friends that went and and it isnt i mean, often its going to be something of great interest for the asianamerican community, but it is also for other communities to see and to see the parallel. Oh, absolutely. You know, one of the most important things with memories to light is to show that weve been part of the larger communities forever. And so a lot of the footage that we have have other people of color, had it has other communities that weve always just been a part of the fabric of the american kind of landscape. So that is another reason why seeing these home movies, its truth and its seeing our stories and seeing that weve about part of america for a while. You really do feel that strength through it whether its the documentary they have those layers and then you see them in the other exhibits as well. Absolutely. And we do things that these stories all they theyre very specific and unique are also very universal and we hope when people see these it will be very powerful and it will connect to them if theyre not asianamerican and we hope everyone r everybody will come out and celebrate these stories. Its almost the time to do that. We were talking about how the contemporary times make the historical things morel and i think those emotional things that youre trying to tap into it its a good time to see and hear those things right now too, uh. Yeah. What do you think is going to be for you, the person coordinating all of this, what is the most rewarding thing four to not only pull it off but seeing it get biggerbigger . I would say theres the large and small. Large is Opening Night at the castro theater march 9th we are playing a very powerful romantic comedy and to see 1400 people of asianamericans or people in our Community Fill that theater that makes me proud of our organization to pull that off. But then its also the smaller programs when you have a film that maybe brings 80 people out but you can see them really connect with that piece, theres nothing that can replicate with that. Caamfest did z it well. All right. Well, you can find schedules and other logistics for caamfest or nbcbayarea. Com and were also on facebook and twitter. I will be the m. C. For caamfest on Opening Night so looking honor ford to being there. Hopefully you can be there too. Please catch us next week and every week here on Asian Pacific america. Thanks for watching. I did meet one russian official a couple of times. The time for trivial fights is behind us. This guy is a visionary. Moonlight, you guys won best picture. Good morning and welcome to sunday today. Im willie geist. Another busy sunday morning as we comb through the implications of president trumps new explosive claim presented without evidence that president obama had had trump tower wire tapped during the campaign. Could it be true or is it a figment of the president s imagination and what happens now either way . Well talk with chuck todd and former Defense Department and cia official jeremy bash about what all thi