Description
In celebration of AANHPI Heritage Month and WorldPride DC 2025, we present a special panel discussion with the acclaimed director of Saving Face, Alice Wu, in conversation with special guests Andrew Ahn and James Tom on queer and Asian American representation in film and media.
Join us after the discussion on our museum's plaza for an outdoor market with SAMASAMA from 4–8 p.m.! Then, on June 1, join us for a screening of Saving Face.
This discussion is copresented with the Queer and Transgender Asian and Pacific Islander Coalition (QTAPI), in partnership with Asian and Pacific Islander Queers United for Action (AQUA DC), Capital Pride Alliance, the Mayor's Office of LGBTQ Affairs (MOLGBTQA), and the Mayor's Office on Asian and Pacific Islander Affairs (MOAPIA) as part of WorldPride 2025.
About Alice Wu
Alice’s debut feature, Saving Face, made its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and was released by Sony Pictures Classics in 2005. Her second film, The Half of It, won the Founders Award at the Tribeca Film Festival before its release on Netflix in 2020. The script was a 2018 selection for the prestigious Black List and garnered a nomination for Best Screenplay at the Independent Spirit Awards. In addition to her feature projects, Alice has been directing episodic television (Fleishman Is in Trouble and Interior Chinatown for Hulu) as well as commercials. Her spot for Oreo was recognized as one of the top 10 commercials of 2022 by Adweek. Alice has degrees from Stanford in computer science and, prior to filmmaking, worked as a software designer at Microsoft.
About Andrew Ahn
Andrew Ahn is a queer Korean American filmmaker based in Los Angeles. Ahn's latest film, The Wedding Banquet, starring Lily Gladstone, Bowen Yang, and Kelly Marie Tran, premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. His previous film, Fire Island, was nominated for two Emmy Awards and won the Ensemble Tribute at the 2023 Gotham Awards and a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Film – Streaming or TV. Ahn's sophomore feature, Driveways, premiered at the 2019 Berlinale and was nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards. Ahn's first film, Spa Night, premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival and won a Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Performance. The film went on to win the 2017 Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award. Ahn has directed both fiction and documentary television, including the shows Bridgerton and Generation. He has promoted diversity in the arts by mentoring youth filmmakers through programs like Pacific Arts Movement’s Reel Voices, Outfest’s OutSet, and the Sundance Institute's Native Filmmaker Lab.
About James Tom
James Tom (he/they) is a stand-up comic, an actor, and a writer, gleefully providing the trans, queer, Asian American, millennial twink perspective that everyone never knew they wanted. He is a story editor on HBO Max's Our Flag Means Death. James can be seen and heard in the Hulu feature Crush, HBO Max’s Love Life, Adult Swim's Tuca & Bertie, and on Hannah Gadsby’s Gender Agenda on Netflix. His writing has been published by Reductress, Shondaland, and Condé Nast’s Them, and he wrote for the Audible/Broadway video series Hot White Heist, produced by Alan Cumming. James has been featured in The New York Times, Vice, Ozy, Forbes, NowThis, Vulture’s Comedians You Should and Will Know in 2021, and was selected as a New Face at the 2021 Just For Laughs festival.
About Jess X. Snow
Jess X. Snow is a nonbinary Chinese Canadian filmmaker, multidisciplinary artist, and poet based in Philadelphia who brings their background in community murals into their film work. Recently named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film, over the last six years, they have made a body of films that blend surrealism, memory, and spirituality to monumentalize the healing journeys of flawed Asian migrant queers. Their short films have screened at university classrooms, community gardens, and film festivals such as BFI London, SFFilm, BlackStar, New Orleans, and Ann Arbor, and can be streamed on the National Film Board of Canada. Recently, they produced and shot We Were the Scenery, which won the Sundance Short Film Jury Award for Nonfiction and made its international premiere at Visions Du Réel. They received their MFA in screenwriting and directing from NYU. Along with their artistic practice, they have lectured and taught workshops on the intersection of their filmmaking, community arts practice, and the Asian immigrant experience with students of all ages and backgrounds.
Bank of America is the Founding Sponsor of the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art “IlluminAsia” Arts and Culture Festival. 
National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, photo by Sonya Pencheva.
Cost
Free. Register in advance (recommended)
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Topics
Celebrations, Lectures & Discussions
