Ann Kaneko smirks while looking directly at the camera.
Ann Kaneko
Photo courtesy Ann Kaneko
Director

Ann Kaneko (she/her) is an Emmy Award winner, known for her personal films that weave her intimate aesthetic with the complex intricacies of political reality. Her poetic feature, Manzanar, Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust, premiered at the 2021 Big Sky Film Festival and won honorable mentions at CAAMFest and Milwaukee Film Festival. She has screened internationally and been commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts, The California Endowment, and Skirball Cultural Center. Other films include A Flicker in Eternity, based on Stanley Hayami’s diary; Against the Grain: An Artist’s Survival Guide to Peru, highlighting Peruvian political artists; Overstay, about Japanese undocumented workers, and 100% Human Hair, a musical for the AFI Directing Workshop for Women. Fluent in Japanese and Spanish, Kaneko has been a Fulbright, Japan Foundation, and Film Independent Doc Lab Fellow and funded by JustFilms/Ford Foundation, The Redford Center, CAAM, Vision Maker Media, Firelight Media, and Hoso Bunka Foundation. She is a member of BGDM, A-Doc and New Day Films, a distribution coop. She teaches at Pitzer College and is the artist mentor for VC’s Armed with a Camera Fellowship.

more Project: Hatched 2021 winners
Emily Cohen Ibañez looking directly at the camera. She has short grey and dark brown hair and is wearing gold earrings, lipstick, and a striped T-shirt.
Emily Cohen Ibañez
Photo courtesy Emily Cohen Ibañez
Jerry Risius holds a camera on his shoulder and smiles directly at the camera.
Jerry Risius
Photo courtesy Jerry Risius
Beth Levison looks at the camera and smiles.
Beth Levison
Photo courtesy Beth Levison
Cai Thomas looks directly at the camera. She has short hair and wears a cap. Portrait in black and white.
Cai Thomas
Photo courtesy Cai Thomas
Leah Galant is smiling at the camera.
Leah Galant
Photo courtesy Leah Galant
Maya Cueva looks at the camera.
Maya Cueva
Photo courtesy Maya Cueva
Mia Donovan looks away from the camera. She wears a dark outfit. Portrait in black and white.
Mia Donovan
Photo courtesy Mia Donovan
Ash Goh Hua looking straight ahead. She has shoulder-length dark hair partially tied up in a bun.
Ash Goh Hua
Photo courtesy Ash Goh Hua
A black and white portrait of filmmaker Brooke Pepion Swaney. A young woman with shoulder length dark hair looks intently at the camera. She wears a collared shirt and a crew neck sweater over it.
Brooke Pepion Swaney
Photo courtesy Brooke Pepion Swaney
A black and white portrait of Daniel Nelson. A white man with a beard and mustache is surrounded by film cameras, he looks down to the right through a camera lens he holds.
Daniel A. Nelson
Photo courtesy Daniel Nelson
A woman with shoulder-length dark hair and bangs looks intently to the left with her chin resting lightly on her fingers. Headshot of Natalie Patillo
Natalie Pattillo
Photo courtesy Natalie Patillo
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