Schedule

Sentenced to life for a 1973 San Francisco murder, Korean immigrant Chol Soo Lee was set free after a pan-Asian solidarity movement, which included Korean, Japanese, and Chinese Americans, helped to overturn his conviction. After 10 years of fighting for his life inside California state prisons, Lee found himself in a new fight to rise to the expectations of the people who believed in him.

And So It Begins follows the Philippines’ turbulent 2022 presidential race, with the son of ousted former dictator Ferdinand Marcos waging a combative social media campaign against his more progressive opponent, incumbent Vice President Leni Robredo. Following it all is independent journalist and Nobel-winner Maria Ressa, with an eye toward the specter of increasing autocracy.

Sentenced to life for a 1973 San Francisco murder, Korean immigrant Chol Soo Lee was set free after a pan-Asian solidarity movement, which included Korean, Japanese, and Chinese Americans, helped to overturn his conviction. After 10 years of fighting for his life inside California state prisons, Lee found himself in a new fight to rise to the expectations of the people who believed in him.

And So It Begins follows the Philippines’ turbulent 2022 presidential race, with the son of ousted former dictator Ferdinand Marcos waging a combative social media campaign against his more progressive opponent, incumbent Vice President Leni Robredo. Following it all is independent journalist and Nobel-winner Maria Ressa, with an eye toward the specter of increasing autocracy.

During the Cold War years, Asian Americans are simultaneously heralded as a Model Minority and targeted as the perpetual foreigner. It is also a time of bold ambition, as Asian Americans aspire for the first time to national political office and a coming culture-quake simmers beneath the surface.

Featuring the redemptive tale of waka builder and captain Lilo Ema Siope’s final years, "Loimata, The Sweetest Tears" is a chronicle of journeys – journeys of migration, spirituality, voyaging, healing and coming home. Confronting intergenerational trauma head on, the Siope family returns to their homeland of Sâmoa.