LOS ANGELES – Since 1970, Visual Communications has been supporting Asian American and Pacific Islander media artists, but when COVID-19 hit, Executive Director Francis Cullado had to cancel the upcoming LA Asian Pacific Film Festival. 

A media arts center, Visual Communications has supported some of the biggest names in Hollywood such as Fast and the Furious director Justin Lin. Visual Communications works to preserve all media created by Asian-American artists. 

“Here in our VC archives, we have about 7,500 films that go all the way back to the late 60s and early 70s,” said Cullado. “Really, this place is our institutional memories of our communities and people.”

Part of VC’s mission is to promote the histories of Asian-American communities and Cullado had big plans for their 50th anniversary, but due to Safer At Home orders, he decided that instead of canceling the film festival altogether, to hold it online as a virtual showcase.

“Since we decided to showcase our films virtually, the challenge has been how to get people together at the same time,” said Cullado. “The showcase itself is very passive. People can stream their films at their own time but we’re trying to gather people to join us for live Q&As, really to connect and create a virtual community.”

So to celebrate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, every night in May, the public is invited to screen a film and then join the filmmakers at 5 p.m. for an intimate talk-back. Filmmaker Marie Jamora is the founder of Cinema Sala and she’ll be hosting a conversation with FilipinX filmmakers. 

“With the waves of the Asian American cinema right now I think community is so important versus competition,” said Jamora, who also directs music videos. “Even though in film festivals, there are winners, it's really about showing that there’s a movement and an army of filmmakers and stories. There’s no end to what kind of stories there are.”

And it’s these stories Asian Americans hope will create an appreciation for diversity from a larger audience.

“The virtual festival is not a replacement for the live festival,” said Cullado. “For now we hope this is just temporarily in a sense, but it is a change and we're looking forward to meeting that moment of the future.”