Tomio Geron
Raising Marginalized Voices
From street corners to hidden histories, Steven Okazaki's documentaries tell untold stories.
STEVEN OKAZAKI quietly but intensely tells the story of Sakue Shimohira, a victim he interviewed for his new film, White Light/Black Rain.
Shimohira was 10 years old and living in Nagasaki when the atomic bomb fell. "There's a remarkable moment when she describes looking for her mother [right after the bombings] and finds a completely blackened body. The body is unidentifiable except for a gold tooth. She reaches out and touches her mother, and [the body] disintegrates into ashes."
Still Breaking Through
New films by Justin Lin and Michael Kang break new ground, but will Hollywood give them a shot?
FIVE YEARS AGO, Justin Lin was just another up-and-coming director at the Sundance Film Festival hoping to catch a big break.
With an unknown indie coming-of-age flick called Better Luck Tomorrow and only 10 maxed-out credit cards to show for it, he didn't know how to respond when people asked, "What do you do?" He clearly wasn't making a living as a filmmaker.
This year, back in the snow-blown Park City, UT, streets for Sundance, he had a little more ease in his step.