When the Los Angeles riots/uprising/civil unrest exploded in 1992, images of destruction beamed across the globe with little context as to why these events had occurred. TV news focused on African Americans, Latinos, and Koreans as both victims and perpetrators of violence, and footage of the “first multicultural riots” locked each group within a stereotype. Twenty-five years after, Grace Lee's "K-Town '92 Reporters" revisits these images that profoundly shaped our understanding of race in America.

This screening is part of ACTION! Cinema as Sanctuary, a free summer series curated by Nerve Macaspac of the Echo Park Film Center. ACTION! is made possible with the support of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

There will be a panel discussion with Grace Lee after the screening.

Doors 7:30 pm. FREE!

PROJECT DIRECTOR/PRODUCER
Grace Lee is an independent producer & director and writer working in both narrative and non-fiction film. She directed the 2014 Peabody Award-winning documentary AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY: THE EVOLUTION OF GRACE LEE BOGGS, which The Hollywood Reporter called ”an entertainingly revealing portrait of the power of a single individual to effect change.” The film premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival where it won its first of six audience awards before its broadcast on the PBS documentary series POV. Her previous documentary THE GRACE LEE PROJECT won multiple awards, broadcast on the Sundance Channel and was called “ridiculously entertaining” by New York Magazine and “ a funny but complex meditation on identity and cultural expectation,” by Variety.

CO-PRODUCER
Eurie Chung fell into community filmmaking while pursuing a graduate degree at UCLA in Asian American Studies. For her Master's thesis, she directed & edited “Metro es Para Todos: Hee Pok ‘Grandma’ Kim and the Bus Riders Union.” Since then, she has worked primarily in post-production, editing commercials, promos and EPK work for Disney/ABC and Scripps Networks, while also continuing to work on independent documentary films.

ACTION! Cinema as Sanctuary
Political documentary films take on a renewed role amid a reinvigorated rage against immigrants, refugees, and people of color in many places around the world. Through politically engaged cinematic work, many filmmakers are confronting old and new forms of racism, the deepening ungrievability of Black and Brown lives, and precarious realities faced by minority communities including indigenous peoples, the elderly, refugees, women and children. ACTION! series: Cinema as Sanctuary features political documentary films that re-assert the images and stories that remind us that a compassionate world rooted upon solidarity, friendship, and collective action is possible. Curated by Nerve Macaspac of the Echo Park Film Center (EPFC), with special support provided by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Nerve is an award-winning filmmaker and a PhD candidate at UCLA Geography Department. His research focuses on community-led spatial strategies in protecting vulnerable civilian lives.