Jalena Keane-Lee

Standing Above the Clouds follows Native Hawaiian mother-daughter activists as they stand to protect their sacred mountain Mauna Kea from the building of the world’s largest telescope.

Full length film based on the award winning short film of the same title. When the massive Thirty Meter Telescope is proposed to be built on Mauna Kea, an uprising of kiaʻi (protectors) in Hawaiʻi and around the world dedicate their lives to protecting the sacred mountain from destruction. Through the lens of mothers and daughters in three Native Hawaiian families, Standing Above the Clouds explores intergenerational healing and the impacts of safeguarding cultural traditions.

A young Ugandan-American girl gains a new understanding of her family and her place in the world as she travels with her mother and brother from New York to Oklahoma, in this richly textured drama by Crystal Kayiza.

Explores the rich, but forgotten, history of the Chinese in Cuba through the stories of four elders: Pedro, Mauro, Caridad, and Georgina—and their descendants. Barrio Chino, Havana’s once-vibrant Chinatown, is one of the oldest and largest in Latin America, now turning to dust along with its history.

Tracing History follows a Chinese American mother and daughter on a road trip to reconnect with their ancestors and each other. They travel to locations in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and Great Basin Desert where their Chinese ancestors worked to build the transcontinental railroad. From Montgomery Pass where 150 year old artifacts lay strewn across the ground, to catfish pond where catfish brought by Chinese laborers still survive a 7,000 feet elevation, to Paoha Island on Mono Lake where Chinese finally found refuge after a racist mob chased them out of town. As they travel and retrace their own history they find the space to open up about the present and deepen their relationship to each other.

Oklahoma is one of 26 states with a “failure to protect” law, which prosecutes parents who fail to prevent child abuse. However, the ACLU and other groups say this law disproportionately criminalizes women, who are often victims of domestic abuse themselves. Hear the story of Clorinda Archuleta, a mother of twin boys, both of whom suffered severe injuries as infants. Clorinda and her ex-boyfriend pled guilty, but Clorinda received three consecutive life sentences under the Oklahoma law, while her partner was sentenced to 25 years. As Clorinda seeks commutation, the film shows how the law has contributed to a cycle of family separation and trauma.

Follows San Thi Da, a 20-year-old construction worker, and Cheery Zahao, a human rights activist, to examine feminism among different socio-economic classes in Yangon, Myanmar.