Hope you can come to VAFF for the 7pm show
Jeff Chiba Stearn's short
animated film “What Are You Anyways” was featured at the 2006 Gung
Haggis Fat Choy Robbie Burns Chinese New Year Dinner.
Order your
tickets in advance – as it should be a sell-out!
cheers,
Todd
http://www.vaff.org/fest10/closing-night-one-big-hapa-family
Day
4 | Program 15
Closing Night: One Big Hapa Family
Sun. Nov. 7th, 7:00 PM
Festival favourite Jeff Chiba
Stearns, an independent documentary and animation filmmaker born in
Kelowna, BC of both Japanese and European descent, explores the
complexity of family and heritage in this program. Stearns’ latest
feature film ONE BIG
HAPA FAMILY tackles
themes of race and identity which are expressed through his unique
style of mixing traditional documentary footage with animation and
humour. Preceding ONE
BIG
HAPA FAMILY is
Stearns’ whimsical short ODE
TO A POST-IT NOTE
in which a
Post-it Note decides on Father’s Day to search for its roots.
ARTIST
SPOTLIGHT: Jeff
Chiba Stearns
Jeff Chiba Stearns is an independent
documentary filmmaker and animator born in Kelowna, BC, of Japanese and
European heritage. After graduating from the Emily Carr Institute of Art
and Design with a Degree in Film Animation in 2001, he founded
Mediating Bunny Studio Inc., specializing in creating animation,
documentary, and experimental films aimed at children and adults that
combine different philosophical and social elements together to create
humorous, inspiring stories. His animated shorts, KIP
AND KYLE (2000), THE HORROR
OF KINDERGARTEN
(2001), WHAT ARE
YOU ANYWAYS? (2005) and YELLOW
STICKY NOTES (2007)
hve been the official selection of hundreds of film festivals around
the world, garnerered various awards and accolades, and broadcast on the
CBC, Discovery Latin
America,
Shaw, Sundance
Channel, Movie Central, Air Canada and Movieola.
One Big Hapa Family
Director/Writer: Jeff Chiba Stearns | Producer:
Ruth Vincent
Documentary | HDCAM |
Colour |
2010 | 85 min |
Canada
After a realization at a family
reunion, half-Japanese Canadian filmmaker Jeff Chiba Stearns embarks on a
journey of self-discovery to find out why everyone
in his Japanese-Canadian family married interracially after his
grandparents’ generation.
This feature-length live action and
animated documentary explores why almost 100 per cent of
Japanese-Canadians are marrying interracially, the highest of any
ethnicity in Canada, and how their mixed children perceive their unique
multiracial identities.
The stories from four generations of a
Japanese-Canadian family come to life through the use of innovative
animation techniques created by some of Canada’s hottest independent
animators, including Louise Johnson, Ben Meinhardt, Todd Ramsay, Kunal
Sen and Jonathan Ng. ONE
BIG
HAPA FAMILY
challenges our perceptions of purity and makes us question if we are
approaching the end of multiculturalism as we know it.
BC PREMIERE
| DIRECTOR IN ATTENDANCE
Previous
Screenings/Awards:
OMNI TV (3 part
series)
preceded by:
Ode To A Post-It Note
Director/Writer/Producer: Jeff Chiba Stearns
Animation | HDCAM |
Colour | 2010 |
5 min |
Canada
On a cluttered office desk plastered
with Post-it Note ‘to do’ lists, one little Post-it Note escapes on an
incredible journey of self-discovery to find its ‘father’.
WESTERN
CANADIAN PREMIERE |
DIRECTOR IN ATTENDANCE