Armed With a Camera captures the stories of peoples in movement. These Artists reflect imagination and adventure, desperation and courage, minds and bodies moving by leaping and struggling towards new possibilities and futures. Asians and Pacific Islanders in America have always had to create stories and present truths about our communities. They are heirs to that heritage and their stories help bind us to that legacy of our struggles, of and for movements, created through media.”

Since 2002, Armed with a Camera Fellowship for Emerging Media Artists (AWC) has developed and supported over 170 Asian American & Native Hawaiian / Pacific Islander filmmakers. Cultivating a rising generation of artists committed to social and political changes and movements, these storytellers have empowered communities and challenged perspectives through their creative works.

As we approach a shifting sociopolitical landscape, this year's accompanying theme will surround the idea of "RE-ENVISIONING." We offer to the upcoming cohort to not only ruminate on the Past and the Present, but activate their contemporary perspectives to reshape and reimagine our Future. We empower these artists to use temporal space to interpret the theme and examine this word’s ability to transform the status quo, in their own vision. Artists may create short films using their archives as a resource and use this overarching idea as a point of creative departure.

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ELIZABETH SUNG MEMORIAL SCHOLARSHIP FUND