Director/Editor/Co-Producer

Christopher Woon is an independent filmmaker based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Always with an eye (and an ear) from the Hip Hop perspective, Chris lets his immersion in Hip Hop as a DJ/Producer and closeted B-Boy shape his art. Having worked or lived in communities of color in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and the California Central Valley for the past 5 years, an important part of his work revolves around helping to provide platforms for the often silenced voices and unheard stories of our communities. Chris has received training at UCLA's Ethnocommunications department and various film classes at Los Angeles City College, but most of his training has come through trail and error while out in the field. AMONG B-BOYS is his first long form documentary, which made its first appearance in 2004 as a 5 minute short film through Visual Communications' Armed With a Camera Fellowship (of which Director of Photography and Co-Producer R.J. Lozada was an artist in) and has screened in Asian American Film Festivals in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Diego, New York, and has also screened at De Anza College, Foothill College, and Sacramento State University classrooms.

Director of Photography/Co-Producer

Roldan "R.J." Lozada is an award-winning filmmaker and journalist. Lozada explores communities of color, and Diaspora with a comprehensive lens and microphone – the dialogues of space, identity, and memory are realized in fiction and non-fiction forms. Lozada was Director of Photography for Gesture Down (I Don't Sing), screening at several film festivals – most notably the Sundance Film Festival (2005), and went on to win awards at the Los Angeles Film Festival (Best Short Documentary), and Best Cinematography at the First Peoples Festival in Montreal, Canada. Lozada continues to explore the depths of Filipino-ness in his new home of San Francisco, documenting the sparsely documented history of Filipinos in the South of Market District.

Advisors

Vivian Kleiman has been awarded top prizes including the George Foster Peabody Award, International Documentary Association's Outstanding Achievement Award, Organization of American Historians' Eric Barnouw Award, and a National Emmy nomination.

Her credits include: First Person Plural (Executive Producer), a personal film by Producer/Director Deann Borshay about her adoption from Korea and assimilation to an American suburb; Hope Along The Wind (Executive Producer), a profile of Harry Hay, founder of America's first gay rights movement; Forgotten Fires (Co-Producer with Michael Chandler), a look at the startling family and community relationships which surfaced in South Carolina after two black churches were burned by members of the Ku Klux Klan as it follows one man's journey from hatred to reconciliation; Roam Sweet Home (Co- Producer with Ellen Spiro), a quirky look at people who live full time in recreational vehicles; Black Is...Black Ain't (Signifyin’ Works’ executive in charge of its posthumous completion), Marlon Riggs' final essay about black identity; Color Adjustment (Co-Producer with Marlon Riggs), an analysis of the representation of African Americans in prime time television from Amos 'n' Andy to The Cosby Show; Tongues Untied (Cinematographer), Riggs' landmark exploration of the lives of black gay men in America; Routes of Exile (Co-Producer and Research Director), which chronicles 2000 years of co-existence among Jews, Arabs and Berbers in Morocco.

Kleiman is a member of the adjunct faculty at Stanford University’s Department of Communication Graduate Program in Documentary Film and Video Production. In addition, she is a member of the board of directors of the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers (AIVF).

(bio taken from www.signifyinworks.com)

The Filmmakers

Director/Editor/Co-Producer

Director of Photography/Co-Producer

Advisors

Among B-Boys BLOGS CAAM