Masterclass
with Renne Tajima-Peña

Saturday, May 20, 3pm-4:30pm
Chicago Cultural Center
4th floor, room 408
78 E. Washington St.
Chicago, IL 60602

FREE with RSVP

RENEE TAJIMA-PEÑA IS AN ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATED FILMMAKER AND MULTI-MEDIA PRODUCER

Her films, including Who Killed Vincent Chin?, My America…or Honk if You Love Buddha, Calavera Highway, Skate Manzanar, Labor Women, No Más Bebés, explore themes of immigration, race, ethnicity, gender, and social justice. She was series producer/showrunner of PBS’s Asian Americans, a ground-breaking 5-hour docuseries collaboration of Asian American filmmakers, scholars, community, and public media. Tajima-Peña’s films have screened at the Cannes Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, Sundance Film Festival, SXSW, the Whitney Biennial, and venues around the world.

Tajima-Peña also produces online media projects on the history of Japanese American incarceration and resistance. Building History 3.0 is an interactive documentary and video game-based learning project on the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans. In 2016 she co-founded the Nikkei Democracy Project, a multi-media collective that uses the power of the Japanese American imprisonment story to expose current threats to constitutional rights.

Academy Award nominated filmmaker Renee Tajima-Peña will share insights about her creative process during this complimentary masterclass. Tajima-Peña will draw on her extensive experience as a documentary filmmaker, which spans from co-directing the classic, newly restored*** "Who Killed Vincent Chin?" to her work as series producer/showrunner for PBS' acclaimed five-part series "Asian Americans."

An engaging and high-energy presenter, Tajima-Peña will emphasize how to find one's story as a person from an underrepresented community, be they AAPI, BIPOC, women, LGBTQIA+ or persons with a disability.  Open to filmmakers, educators, students and anyone with a story to tell!

Masterclass co-presented by Foundation for Asian-American Independent Media (FAAIM), Doc Chicago, and the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. 

*** "Who Killed Vincent Chin?" has been restored by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Film Archive and The Film Foundation, in association with the Museum of Chinese in America. Restoration funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation, with additional support provided by Todd Phillips.