Subscribe to our newsletter by emailFilm Series Collaboration with the Southeast Asian Student Association (SASA)
The UCI Libraries Orange County and Southeast Asian Archive (OC&SEAA) Center has partnered with the Southeast Asian Student Association at UCI, to provide programming that highlights our Southeast Asian Archive collections as well as fulfill SASA's mission of raising awareness around issues impacting Southeast Asian American communities at UCI. Student organizers wanted to host regular film screenings to bring current issues to the fore. The OC&SEAA Center provided space, content, and technology to bring this vision to life in January, as a pilot to see if a quarterly or monthly film series would interest UCI students and faculty.
SASA officer, Sophaline Chuong, worked with Thuy Vo Dang to select a new documentary recently added to the SEAA collections called Can for the first screening held on January 28, 2016. Can is one of the first documentary films that explores the issue of mental illness for Asian Americans in an in-depth way. Filmmaker Pearl J. Park follows the struggles and triumphs of Can Truong, a Vietnamese American from a refugee family who suffers from bipolar disorder and severe depression. Following the screening, SASA students led a discussion to further understand how these issues might relate to their own communities and families.
Twenty-four students attended the film screening and stayed to engage in the thoughtful conversation. A few were from Asian American Studies classes, where they were offered extra credit to attend and write response papers to submit to their professors. After the success of this first film screening, we are gearing up for more, including an April 7th screening of Don't Think I've Forgotten: Cambodia's Lost Rock and Roll, another film recently added to the SEAA collections. The film focuses on popular music stars of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970 in Cambodia. "A vibrant musical culture that was nearly lost forever under the brutal Khmer Rouge regime is revived and celebrated." This screening will include a faculty discussant, Professor Lan Duong, who is with the UC Humanities Research Institute is leading the Critical Refugee Studies group. Her research focuses on media and cultural studies.
The film series reflects our efforts to build strategic partnerships with campus organizations and provide the community with programs that reflect our commitment to diversity and increased inter-cultural understanding.
For more information, please contact Thuy Vo Dang, Ph.D., Archivist for Southeast Asian Archive and Regional History at tvodang@uci.edu or 949-824-1878.