Author: Quentin Lee

As the Executive Producer of Barbara Kayee Lee’s documentary feature Sing My Song, I would like to cordially invite you to the FREE WORLD PREMIERE on October 9, 2024, at 7 pm in Toronto.

From the perspective of a North American immigrant from China, the Western media treatment of Pan Zhenle, a Chinese Olympic gold winner, has ranged from rude to racist. It has been well documented that the American silver winner refused to shake Pan’s hand and some random Australian swim coach (who has nothing much to do with the current Olympics) caused a Western media circus to discredit Pan’s gold medal for unfounded suspicion of doping, which has already been discredited by the Olympics committee and major Western media like The Guardian.

I first met Randi Liberman when she was subbing for dancer Hero Thomas’ class at Los Angeles’ Millennium Dance Complex. I enjoyed her choreography so much that—because I couldn’t make her regular class—I’ve decided to take private lessons from her. Originally from Montréal and now working as a dancer, choreographer and teacher in Los Angeles, Randi currently dances for pop artist Ava Max, teaches hip hop dance at Millennium Dance Complex and choreographs for various rising music artists. I took the opportunity to interview her about her rising career.

Writer Adi Tantimedh and I first met at the 1995 Vancouver International Film Festival through British film critic Tony Rayns. Adi was at VIFF with his NYU MFA thesis film while I was there with my “first feature” Flow, a feature compilation of my short films made at UCLA Film School. The fictional filmmaker character in Flow resembled Adi so that many people at the festival thought Adi was me; and hence this doppelganger relationship at a film festival was how we connected. Almost three decades later, I caught up with Adi whose podcast series Sanctuary will be released this month on August 19 by Voyage Media.

As a collaborator with Koji Steven Sakai, a prolific screenwriter, creator and producer, I interviewed Koji on his first fictional and latest podcast series Elucidity which Voyage Media has just dropped on Apple Podcasts among other major podcasting platform.

World premiering at the upcoming Inside Out Film Festival in Toronto, Colette Vosberg’s documentary feature Unusually Norman brilliantly portrays “the gayest family” in Canada that spans three generations of queer women. CHOPSO takes the opportunity to speak with Colette about her queerly brilliant documentary feature before its world premiere

Rika Ohara’s experimental feature “The Heart of No Place” imagines the life of Yoko Ono after the death of John Lennon. Rika herself plays the titular character Y. in her feature directorial debut that won accolades on its initial film festival circuit screenings. As the feature drops today on AAM.tv, I have interviewed Rika on her looking back at her own feature film.

On Saturday, March 9, 2024, I was invited to the world premiere of the fan fiction web series Hulkling and Wiccan, produced by and starring a fellow Yale in Hollywood colleague, Nathaniel Dolquist. Unfortunately, when I got out of the Polish Golden Award event for my former UCLA professor Jerzy Antczak late, arriving at the Hulkling and Wiccan premiere, I had already missed the screening. Nevertheless, Nathaniel was kind enough to send me a screener the next day and I was immediately a fan after watching the full 6 part mini web series which has a running time 12 minutes or so. With a nod to contemporary television like Modern Family and the superhero cinematic genre, despite being a fan fiction series, Hulking and Wiccan created a genre on its own where the superhero genre meets LGBTQ cinema.

Young Man Kang is probably the most prolific veteran AAPI creator I know. Casting now, he is set to continue his ‘Prayer International Series’ with the next episode taking place in Rio de Janeiro during the Rio Webfest 2023 event.

When I was going to high school in Montreal as a 15-year-old immigrant from Hong Kong, I remember meeting Nick, a fellow 11th grader, who…