AAJA’s End of Year Top 10 Lists
By: Asian American Journalists Association
Tags: Journalism, Asian American, Top 10, Documentary, Asian American Literature

10 Documentaries by AAPI Filmmakers

Be Water — ESPN’s Bruce Lee documentary, directed by Bao Nguyen, uses archive film to chronicle the actor, director and martial artist’s movie career and highlights his social awareness and inspiration of millions. He would have turned 80 this year. Sky Blossom: Diaries of the Next Greatest Generation — Richard Lui’s* directorial debut looks at the millions of teens and twenty-somethings caring for a veteran parent or grandparent. The movie, with a production team stacked with AAJA members and predominantly comprising women of color, tells the quietly heroic stories of young caregivers. First Vote — A Chinese immigrant and first-time voter in 2020, filmmaker Yi Chen* documents the journey of four politically-engaged Chinese Americans in battleground states from the 2016 presidential election to the 2018 midterms. A Thousand Cuts — Maria Ressa*, co-founder and CEO of Rappler, and her team of journalists are at the center of Ramona S. Diaz’s documentary about the erosion of democracy and free press in Rodrigo Duterte’s Philippines. Check out our talkback from AAJA Visibility Fest (#AAJA20) featuring Maria Ressa and Ramona S. Diaz in conversation with Benjamin Pimentel* of Business Insider.

5. Standing Above the Clouds — The documentary follows Native Hawaiian mother-daughter activists seeking to protect their sacred Mauna Kea volcano from the building of a megatelescope. The film is directed by Jalena Keane-Lee, co-founder of Breaktide Productions, an all-women-of-color video-production company.

6. How My Family Dealt With the Coronavirus Outbreak — Junting Zhou chronicles the quarantine experience of his family back in his hometown, Guangzhou, not long after Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, went into lockdown. This New York Times Op-Doc reflects life in a major Chinese city during a historic time.

7. 76 Days — Directed by Hao Wu, Weixi Chen, and Anonymous, the documentary chronicles the struggle of frontline hospital workers and patients in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic in Wuhan, which was locked down for 76 days.

8. Asian Americans — The most comprehensive documentary series to date about the Asian American experience, the five episodes, produced by WETA and the Center for Asian American Media for PBS, examines the history, contributions and challenges facing Asian Americans through their stories.

9. Patutiki: The Guardians of the Marquesan Tattoo — Screened in the native Polynesian language of the Marquesas, the film uncovers the cultural puzzles left by the Patutiki, or Marquesan tattoo, which was declared illegal in the early 1900s. The film was co-directed, written, and produced by a Marquesan, Heretu Tetahiotupa, and Christophe Cordier of France.

10. Noodle Kid — Mei Xiang, 14, opens a noodle shop, a common story among ethnic Huis in western China, where the Muslim Chinese minority is besieged. The documentary by Gary Shih and Ning Huo looks at their religious life through his lens and apprenticeship; he wants to be an imam one day.