A message from the Artistic Director — Brian Hu

The most competitive prize of the San Diego Asian Film Festival is the Audience Award, open annually to every new feature at the festival no matter its budget, genre, or language. You might assume that the winners of the award would be the star-studded, sparkly studio films made for the big screen and Netflix streaming. But no, year after year, the Audience Award goes to a documentary made for public television.

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If you include our Spring Showcase, we at SDAFF have given out 28 Audience Awards, and 17 have been to films that have received public television funding or that were shown on PBS. Public television has a reputation for making “important” films that are “good for us.” Educational and historical documentaries. Films that are the vegetables rather than the meat or the dessert. But the fact that over 60% of the time, SDAFF audiences prefer PBS docs over the rom-coms, action films, and costume epics means that PBS films aren’t just good for us, they are also the most entertaining, moving, and awe-inspiring films of all.

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So what does it mean that Congress is on the verge of massively cutting the Corporation for Public Broadcasting? There are numerous excellent reasons for saving PBS, but SDAFF’s audiences remind us of one that we often forget: these are films that most stir our hearts, and not just our minds. Saving PBS is not just a matter of conscience but of joy.

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This week, the Senate votes on a rescissions bill that will cut a billion dollars in already-approved funding for public media. That’s a hit to PBS series like Frontline, Independent Lens, POV, and American Masters that have platformed some of the most beloved of all Asian American films, to non-profits like the Center for Asian American Media and Pacific Islanders in Communication which have produced countless documentaries that would have never been greenlit elsewhere, and to local affiliates like San Diego’s KPBS that make these films accessible in our homes throughout the year. We at Pacific Arts Movement urge you to call and email your senators to preserve public media funding. You’ve long voted PBS films as your favorites. Let’s demand our senators vote to save them.

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For more information about how to contact Congress and how to take action, visit protectmypublicmedia.org

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A list of SDAFF and SDAFF Spring Showcase Audience Award winners that were partially funded by the CPB or were shown on PBS:

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Between Goodbyes (2025)
Home Court (2024)
Finding Her Beat (2023)
Free Chol Soo Lee (2022)
Try Harder! (2021)
Down a Dark Stairwell (2020)
Minding the Gap (2018)
Abacus: Small Enough to Jail (2017)
Island Soldier (2017)
The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble (2016)
Daze of Justice (2016)
Tyrus (2015)
Limited Partnership (2014)
To Be Takei (2014)
Harana (2013)
American Revolutionary: the Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs (2013)
One Voice (2010)

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