Photo courtesy of Bob Hsiang.

I just heard that Chinese American filmmaker, media policy advocate, and teacher Loni Ding has passed.

Ding was the Executive Director of the Center for Educational Telecommunications, a multicultural telecommunications nonprofit with an Asian American interest. She also spent over thirty years advocating for social justice through media representation in multicultural film and programming. She helped establish the Neighborhood Arts Program in San Francisco -- a government initiative that helped establish some of this city's most enduring arts and media organizations. She also helped found the National Asian American Telecommunications Association (NAATA), which is now called Center for Asian American Media (CAAM) and presents the San Francisco As Am film fest every year.

I only met her a few times, in passing. She was one of those presences, whose name was always on people's lips, and who whirled past on special occasions like the god of cameras and community. We're losing too many of our leaders.

I'll update as I hear more news.

ETA: Poplicks has a tribute here. Barbara Abrash posts a longer tribute on Center for Social Media. And here's a memorial site from her students and friends.

ETA: SF Chronicle obituary here.