Sex, Politics and Sticky Rice

Jiro Onuma liked fine clothing and muscular men. How did this dandyish gay bachelor survive the isolation, humiliation and homophobia of the Japanese American Internment Camps during World War II? This musical mash-up video features drag king performance, U.S. propaganda footage, muscle building, and homoerotic bread making.

A haunting commemoration of the Tiananmen Square uprisings.

Pulsing flashbacks from the summer of love reawaken a queer California classic.

A tribute to the ongoing protests in Hong Kong that are taking place three decades after the Tiananmen Square uprising.

Oblique wanderings of emulsion lifted from reels of 35mm film capture fleeting cinematic impressions of a wayward woman.

James Wakasa was shot by military police at Topaz WWII incarceration camp. Using the “Rashomon effect," this queer experimental film essay juxtaposes conflicting accounts regarding the circumstances and cause of Wakasa's untimely death.

Abstract impressions of Kung Fu cinema.

Honoring the Woman, Life, Freedom movement and the legacy of Mahsa Amini, known as “Jina.” (TT Takemoto)

"Inspired by Rosalie 'Rose' Bamberger (1921-1990), the mixed-race Filipina American paintbrush maker and co-founder of the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) in 1955. When DOB shifted their focus to becoming the first US lesbian political rights organization, Rose and her partner Rosemary faded from the historical record. What they truly sought was a 'secret society for lesbians' -- a space to dance, drink, and dine without fear of police raids. The film presents Rose's unrealized vision -- a kaleidoscope of women swinging, playing, and dancing, intercut with celluloid fragments of potlucks and paintbrushes ... " (TT) Commissioned for Canyon Cinema's Print Generations project.

"An oblique portrait of gay Japanese American actor Sab Shimono, whose work on stage and screen spans more than five decades. The grammatology of his career attests to conflicting lexicons of race, representation, and selfhood." (Tina Takemoto)

History and place. Maps and memories. (Taken from BFI Flare Film Festival 2019 guide). Dir. Tina Takemoto, 2018.

Fugue for wushu in the West.

"On the Line" is inspired by Isa Shimoda, a butch gender nonconforming immigrant who served meals to Japanese American tuna cannery workers in her restaurant on the docks of San Diego in the 1930s. She was known for her masculine attire as well as her skills at naginata, a sword-based martial art practiced by Japanese women. Her restaurant was a refuge for the women who endured gruesome hours cleaning fish and lived in meager housing shelters known as "fish camp." Shimoda has two sets of wartime records from the incarceration camps—one identifying her as female, the other as male.

Inspired by San Francisco's first Chinese American female physician, this film envisions the euphoria and despair of Margaret Chung and her insatiable desire for women and celebrity through her forays into drugs, sapphic surgeries, and queer flights of fancy.