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Valerie Soe

Directing

Biography

Since 1986 Valerie Soe’s experimental videos, installations, and documentary films have won dozens of awards, grants, and commissions and have exhibited at film festivals, museums, and galleries worldwide. Her short experimental video, “ALL ORIENTALS LOOK THE SAME,” won Best International Video at the 1987 Festival Internazionale Cinema Giovani, Torino, Italy, First Place, Experimental Category, at the 1987 Sony Corporation Visions of U.S. Festival, and Honorable Mention, Experimental Video, at the 12th Atlanta Film and Video Festival. Her short experimental documentary, PICTURING ORIENTAL GIRLS: A (RE) EDUCATIONAL VIDEOTAPE won Best Bay Area Short at the 1992 San Francisco International Film Festival. Her feature documentary, Love Boat: Taiwan, was released in 2019 and won the Audience Award at the Urban Nomad Film Festival In Taipei, Taiwan, and has played to sold-out festival audiences across North America and in Taiwan. Her short experimental documentary, Radical Care: The Auntie Sewing Squad (2020), made in collaboration with Kronos Quartet and the Auntie Sewing Squad, won a Director’s Choice Award at the 2021 Thomas Edison Film Festival and the 2021 Best of Bernal Award at Bernal Heights Outdoor Cinema. She is Professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University.

Known For

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This documentary tells the story of a broad, multi-ethnic coalition--undocumented residents from Mexico, a European American minister, Cambodian refugees who had survived the Killing Fields, city officials, college students and others--at the Oak Park apartments in Oakland, CA who in 2000 won an historic settlement of almost one million dollars against their landlord, one of the worst of the "dirty dozen" of landlords in Oakland. Not only did this coalition win monetary damages for forty-four households, but they also forced the landlord to sell the building to two non-profit organizations. Since that time, the tenants have moved into brand new apartments that are permanently affordable, The Oak Park Story traces the stories of this coalition of activists and profiles immigrants overcoming tremendous odds, both here and in their native countries.

The Oak Park Story

2010Movie