What are you anyways?
Jan. 22nd, 2006 09:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blue_lotus13Yesterday I had a meeting/interview session with Jeff Chiba Stearns, an animator who made a cute little film called "What are you anyways?" The film, which has been shown on Zed TV and film festivals across North America, is an 11 minute animated film whichs deals with issues about growing up mixed. The film is doing quite well and has won a lot of awards, including the Best Animation award at the Los Angeles Asian Film Festival.
Jeff's hapa (half-Japanese) and he grew up in the very white city of Kelowna before he moved to Vancouver to go to school. He's a very talkative guy with a good sense of humour, so we got along rather well.
I could really relate to the film. There's a section in the film called "Ethnic Roulette" where Jeff draws himself wearing costumes which represent all the ethnicities that people have mistaken him for. He also talks about the racism he encountered from friends, and how he eventually embraced his hapa identity.
I like his style of drawing, which you can see on his website.
When we began discussing other hapa artists, Jeff informed me that I could watch Kip Fulbeck's film Lilo and Me online. This is another short film that I've been wanting to see for a while. It deals with ethnic ambiguity and how Kip resembles all of the ethnic characters in "Disney" movies. It's a cute little film. I'm also looking forward to his book about hapa people, which will be coming out in April.
Jeff's hapa (half-Japanese) and he grew up in the very white city of Kelowna before he moved to Vancouver to go to school. He's a very talkative guy with a good sense of humour, so we got along rather well.
I could really relate to the film. There's a section in the film called "Ethnic Roulette" where Jeff draws himself wearing costumes which represent all the ethnicities that people have mistaken him for. He also talks about the racism he encountered from friends, and how he eventually embraced his hapa identity.
I like his style of drawing, which you can see on his website.
When we began discussing other hapa artists, Jeff informed me that I could watch Kip Fulbeck's film Lilo and Me online. This is another short film that I've been wanting to see for a while. It deals with ethnic ambiguity and how Kip resembles all of the ethnic characters in "Disney" movies. It's a cute little film. I'm also looking forward to his book about hapa people, which will be coming out in April.
