Kanopy offers free access to an impressive lineup of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage films. Immerse yourself in the rich stories that highlight the diverse experiences, traditions, and histories of the AAPI community. From heartwarming dramas to eye-opening documentaries, there’s something for everyone. Grab your popcorn and start streaming now to celebrate and appreciate the incredible contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the world of cinema. Access the collection at kanopy.com/category/14214.
After leaving NYC for his rural hometown of Bad Axe, Michigan at the start of the pandemic, Asian American filmmaker David Siev documents his family’s struggles to keep their restaurant afloat. As fears of the virus grow, deep generational scars dating back to Cambodia’s bloody “killing fields” come to the fore, straining the relationship between the family’s patriarch, Chun, and his daughter, Jaclyn. When the BLM movement takes center stage in America, the family uses its collective voice to speak out in their conservative community. What unfolds is a real-time portrait of 2020 through the lens of one multicultural family’s fight stay in business, stay involved, and stay alive.
Casey (Haley Lu Richardson) lives with her mother in a little-known Midwestern town haunted by the promise of modernism. Jin (John Cho), a visitor from the other side of the world, attends to his dying father. Burdened by the future, they find respite in one another and the architecture that surrounds them.
A ghost story set in the pastoral countryside of the north shore of O‘ahu, Hawai‘i. Revealed in four chapters, it tells the story of an elderly man facing the end of his life, visited by the ghosts of his past. Incorporating familial history and mythology, dream logic and surrealism, I Was a Simple Man is a time-shifting, kaleidoscopic story of a fractured family facing the death of their patriarch that will take us from the high-rises of contemporary Honolulu to pre-WWII pastorals of O‘ahu and, finally, into the beyond.
A lonesome boy accompanies his mother on a trip to clean out his late aunt’s house, where he ends up forming an unexpected friendship with the retiree who lives next door.
In this mouth-watering documentary, director Wayne Wang (The Joy Luck Club) profiles Cecilia Chiang, the matriarch of modern Chinese cooking, as she relates her fascinating history and cooks up a sumptuous, once-in-a-lifetime banquet.
