Asian Pacific American (APA)/Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month is approaching and that means we’re about to get more AAPI spotlights and movements coming out way.
Continue reading “HBO Max Highlights AAPI Content and Announces Short Film Competition For May”
We are delighted to speak with Legends of Tomorrow cast member Shayan Sobhian and his writing partner and director Max Mooney on their new film Does Bigfoot Dream of Flowers?. What inspired them to do this project? How is this depiction of Bigfoot similar and different from those we’ve seen before? We also hear from Shayan on his role as Behrad on Legends of Tomorrow, and where the show might go from their recent Season 7 finale.
Continue reading “The Middle Geeks: Shayan Sobhian and Max Mooney on ‘Does Bigfoot Dream of Flowers?’”
Today, our friends at CAPE have announced they are teaming up with Janet Yang Productions to launch the inaugural Julia S. Gouw Short Film Challenge.
Continue reading “CAPE’s Short Film Challenge for AAPI Women and Non-Binary Filmmakers”
Well, it finally happened! Long time friend of the NOC, Yoshi Sudarso, has been cast as Nightwing in an upcoming live-action adaptation of Webtoon’s popular Batman: Wayne Family Adventures webcomic.
Continue reading “Yoshi Sudarso is Finally Nightwing in Live Action ‘Batman: Wayne Family Adventures’”
Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Far From Tree may feature a pair of raccoons as the main characters, but they have very humanistic qualities. Like the protective instincts of a parents or the genuine curiosity of a child. Set on a quiet idyllic beach of the Pacific Northwest, audiences will get to see how the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree applies to every parent and child relationship, even those who are raccoons.
Continue reading “Natalie Nourigat Talks How ‘Far From Tree’ is Personal and Speaks to a Larger Audience”
Masi Oka’s life in the Star Wars Universe has come full circle. When he was fresh out of college, he took a job with Industrial Light & Magic as a digital and visual effects artist working on the Star Wars prequels. Now, the actor is voicing a Jedi in the new anime-inspired Star Wars series, Visions.
Continue reading “Masi Oka on ‘Star Wars: Visions’ and How His Career Came Full Circle”
Director Aphton Corbin is excited and surprised to see her Disney-Pixar SparksShort Twenty Something come to life on Disney+.
“My inspiration was my own 20s journey through life where I just feel like a new director — the panic and stress of ‘oh my gosh, did they pick the wrong person?’ I’m just barely figuring out how to be a functional adult in life,” said Corbin during a Zoom interview with The Nerds of Color. It was a fun insecurity to dig into of what was making me feel this way.”
Continue reading “‘Twenty Something’ Director Aphton Corbin Inspired By Her Youth for SparksShort”
In The Beauty President, Terence Smith retells his ’92 presidential campaign as his drag queen persona Ms. Joan Black in a conversational documentary short film by Whitney Skauge. Smith didn’t realize at the time it would be such a historic moment in political art, and this film captures his surprise and delight at being a part of history.
Continue reading “A Beautiful Presidential Conversation w/ Whitney Skauge and Terence Smith”
To celebrate International Dog Day, Disney+ has shared the official trailer and key art for Pixar Animation Studios’ Dug Days! Bob Peterson, the voice of Dug then and now as well as a screenwriter and co-director on Up, wrote and directed the new series of five shorts. Kim Collins serves as producer.
Continue reading “Disney+ Just Dropped the Trailer and Key Art for Pixar’s ‘Dug Days’”
As I watched the Pride flag waving as the credits ran at the end of The Beauty President, I remembered growing up in the early 2000s and how I knew nothing about what that flag meant then. That 20 years later, I can see it at my city’s town hall flying next to the United States flag. Director Whitney Skauge and the film’s subject, Terrance Alan Smith, bring a beautiful historical moment in LGBTQ+ history to the forefront with an air of grace and love that I hope everyone could see.
Continue reading “‘The Beauty President’ is a Beauty to Behold”
It’s that time of year again!
HBO has announced the three finalists of the fifth annual Asian Pacific American Visionaries, a short film competition showcasing stories told by directors of Asian and Pacific Islander (APA) descent. Out of hundreds of submissions, the judges, made up of HBO executives, industry leaders, and fellow APA filmmakers.
Continue reading “HBO’s Fifth Annual Asian Pacific American Visionaries Short Film Competition Selects its Winners”
Hao Zheng is no stranger to creating stories that touches on the human spirit. The award-winning director, who was recently named a 2021 Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree and recognized at countless film festivals, has been recognized for his work with the 2019 First International Film Festival Directing Lab and now as a 2020 Disney Launchpad Director and 2020 HBO Access Directing Program Fellow, where he continues to explore themes of identity and belonging.
Continue reading “‘Dinner is Served’ Director on Trying to Fit in and Finding Himself in the Process”
One of the directors, Stefanie Abel Horowitz previously directed theater for nearly a decade before pivoting to film. She was determined to tell important stories through her work like her previous short film, sometimes, i think about dying, a story about a woman’s existential crisis with death, which premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.
Continue reading “‘Let’s Be Tigers’ Director on Being Vulnerable and Processing Grief”
Growing up in a conservative town like Hunan, China, Peng was met with discouragement from the neighborhood over their femininity. As a queer and non-binary filmmaker who grew up in China, their focus has always been to address the working class and the intersectionality of the queer community. Peng was fortunate to have supportive parents who love them and always encouraged Peng to be who they were. The same could not be said of the parents of their friends. This is how The Little Prince(ss) was developed.
Continue reading “‘The Little Prince(ss)’ Director on Femininity, Toxic Masculinity, and Finding Acceptance”
Nida Manzoor’s We Are Lady Parts, a British series featuring a punk rock band of all Muslim women of color, premiered here in the US on NBC’s Peacock streaming service! It’s a landmark in Muslim representation for so many viewers worldwide, who haven’t been able to see themselves represented on screen like this in such a subversive, yet bold, way like this before.
Continue reading “NOC Interview: Faith Omole of ‘We Are Lady Parts’”
Disney’s Launchpad: Shorts Incubator — a filmmaking program dedicated to amplifying underrepresented voices — celebrates six directors in its inaugural year to create a story centered on the theme of ‘Discover.’
One of the voices came from Los Angeles-based filmmaker Aqsa Altaf who wanted to capture what it meant to be a Muslin American. Growing up in Kuwait by Pakistani and Sri Lankan parents in a Muslim home, Altaf realized there were not many stories surrounding Muslim stories, especially positive ones that celebrates the culture. Instead, Altaf only saw negative stereotypes of Muslims in the media. She wanted to change all of that and became fascinated with telling diverse stories that reflected on subject matters that are universal.
Continue reading “‘American Eid’ Director Aqsa Altaf on the Importance of Muslim Stories and Finding Her Voice”
We are SO excited to discuss Nida Manzoor’s We Are Lady Parts, a British series featuring a punk rock band of all Muslim women of color, including MENA women, premiering today on Peacock TV! What did we love particularly about this series, and how well does it handle representation? We also discuss the news of the additional Sandman for Netflix, including the Lebanese Razane Jammal, American Eid debuting on Disney+, and much more!
Continue reading “The Middle Geeks Episode 27: ‘We Are Lady Parts’ Review”
When you first hear the words Disney’s Launchpad, fans immediately think of the famous pilot from Disney’s DuckTales, Launchpad McDuck. It pops up in the Google search when you look up Disney’s Launchpad, but now, Disney is using the word for something greater (sorry, DuckTales fans) and something that will have a lasting impact on diversity and inclusion in filmmaking and storytelling in Hollywood.
Continue reading “Disney’s ‘Launchpad’ Inspires Filmmakers to Tell Their Stories to Disney+”
Writer, and Friend of the NOC, Marc Bernardin had always hoped to direct a movie by the time he turned 50. Well, now he’s gone and done it!
Though he has already exceeded his original Kickstarter goal in less than 12 hours, Bernardin’s directorial debut, the short film Splinter, still has a month to go to raise even more money!
Continue reading “Kickstart This: Marc Bernardin’s Directorial Debut, ‘Splinter’”
We discuss the most recent IDF and Israeli government brutalization and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza and East Jerusalem and discuss what the world and the US need to do to help those affected and end the occupation. We discuss what the daily reality is like for Palestinians in the West Bank through Farah Nabulsi’s brilliant short film, The Present, which you can watch on Netflix. Please do what you can to help Palestinians in need.
Continue reading “The Middle Geeks Episode 26: ‘The Present’ in Palestine”
by Barry Jenkins | Originally published on Vimeo
In my years of doing interviews and roundtables and Q&A’s for the various films we’ve made, there is one question that recurs. No matter the length of the piece or the tone of the room, eventually, inevitably, I am asked about the white gaze. It wasn’t until a very particular interview regarding The Underground Railroad that the blindspot inherent in that questioning became clear to me: never, in all my years of working or questioning, had I been set upon about the Black gaze; or the gaze distilled.
Continue reading “A ‘Gaze’ into the Soul of ‘The Underground Railroad’”
Samantha Win is blowing up. It’s only May, but it’s already been quite a year for the actress / martial artist / stunt performer / Amazonian warrior / zombie hunter. In March, she wrote, produced, and starred in a genre-bending shortfilm called Unwelcome. She can currently be seen on HBO Max as Euboea in Zack Snyder’s Justice League. On May 14, her latest Snyder-collab, Army of the Dead opens in theaters nationwide — making it Netflix’s widest release ever — before coming to the streamer the following week on May 21.
Continue reading “From Amazon to Zombie Hunter: Samantha Win Reflects on Her Career”
Representation is not just about putting a diverse array of faces on a product and calling it a day, but it is also about ensuring that this diversity actually empowers and puts authority into who it is telling the stories of.
Continue reading “Pixar’s ‘Float’ is Not Just About Representation but an Authentic Experience”