Street Movies! Undercover
Location(s)
This program of award-winning short film and video takes us from a park in South Philadelphia to a coffee shop in San Francisco's Tenderloin and from the steppe country of Central Asia to the city of Dubai in United Arab Emirates. Along our journey, we are reminded of the resilience and perseverance of culture under hostile, sometimes brutal conditions, and the essential role of independent media in political education and organizing.
With an emphasis on youth produced work, the program features three short videos by Global Action Project. With the debate on immigration reform raging across the nation, as politicians and everyday folk contemplate the impact of a new bill (HR 4437), ten brave teens confront some of the deeper issues surrounding the root causes of migration in Twisted Truth (12 mins, documentary). 
In Holla Back Dubai! (2002, 6 mins, documentary) sixth-graders from Washington Heights (New York) came together to explore some of the racist attitudes directed at people from the Middle East in the aftermath of September 11. These youth sent video letters about themselves to youth in Dubai, and asked some of the questions many young people have about Islam, September 11th, and "those people in the middle East." Youth in Dubai sent video letters back, in this piece about cross-cultural understanding and media deconstruction.
One Family (2002, 10 mins, documentary) tells the story of twelve youth from Sierra Leone, Bosnia, and Serbia who have weathered both war and long journeys to the U.S. After reaching their new home, they find themselves working and living as a group of young refugees in New York City. Weaving their voices into a shared story, they reflect their views on themselves and the whole world, joined as one family.
In 1937, Stalin began a campaign of massive ethnic cleansing and forcibly deported everyone
of Korean origin living in the coastal provinces of the Far East Russia near the border of North Korea to the unsettled steppe country of Central Asia 3700 miles away. Koryo Saram (2007, 10 min. excerpt, documentary) by Y. David Chung and Matt Dibble tells the story of 180,000 Koreans who became political pawns during the Great Terror. With political scientist and executive producer Meredith Jung-En Woo and cameraman Matt Dibble, Chung traveled to film the survivors of the deportation and their descendants who still live in Kazakhstan today.
From the early years of the Vietnamese Youth Development Center's Media Lab, Table for Thu (1994, 5:30 mins, documentary), by Linh Nguyen, is a behind-the-scenes documentary look at a Vietnamese coffee shop in the Tenderloin district in San Francisco.
Rini Yun Keagy uses hand-painted animation in Ring of Fire (2006, 4:00 mins, animation) to explore the "shape of things" as the volcanic Mount Merapi erupts on the island of Java in 2006.
In Slip of the Tongue (2005, 4:06 mins, youth slam) by Karen Lum, a young man makes a pass at a beautiful stranger and gets an eyeopening schooling on race and gender.
Mifflin Square Park in South Philadelphia is a vibrant and important gathering place for the city’s Cambodian and Laotian residents. But some residents and local media associate their presence with crime, violence, and contamination. Through interviews and documentary footage, Boone T. Nguyen's Contested Terrains (2007, 9 mins, documentary) documents how Philadelphia's Cambodian and Laotian communities continue to publicly celebrate their cultural traditions in this hostile and racist environment.
Kieu (2006, 17:40 mins, experimental), loosely translated as "foreign,” is the name given to thousands of Vietnamese refugees and their children who have journeyed “home." Within Kevin T. Allen's film, we traverse 
notions of origin and belonging by way of luscious Kodachrome travel footage. Through an intricate weaving of field recordings and the vivid stories of three Viet-Kieu voices we "return" to Vietnam. Their culturally fragmented narratives pose questions relevant to all those who travel. What is it we are moving toward in this cycle of searching and returning? What do we bring back with us? What is this need for motion, this pursuit? The camera too becomes a voice in this cinematic journey, the embodiment of a question, a kinesthetic quest for the meaning of being and belonging.
Since its founding in 1984, Southeast Asian Mutual Assistance Association Coalition (SEAMAAC) affirms that immigrants and refugees are the foundation of the United States’ prosperity and freedoms. SEAMAAC supports immigrants, refugees, and their families as they seek access to opportunities, which would advance the condition of their lives.