NAJC Redress 2008 registration form.pdfDates: Friday September 19, 2008
Location/Time: 4:15pm - 6:00pm
_______________________________________________________________________
Back to Conference Page
Caitlin Ohama-Darcus
Jeff Chiba Stearns
Coordinator:
Caitlin Ohama-Darcus is an active member of the Japanese-Canadian community in Vancouver, contributing youth-oriented columns to The Bulletin magazine, performing as a senior member of Chibi Taiko, and working to preserve her community's history. Caitlin is currently an undergraduate student at the University of British Columbia, and plans to pursue studies in physiological and political science.
Coordinator:
Guest Speaker:
Jeff Chiba Stearns is an award-winning Canadian independent animation filmmaker, writer and artist, born in Kelowna, BC, of Japanese and European heritage. Using various formats like animation, documentary, and experimental, Jeff enjoys creating works aimed at children and adults that combine different philosophical elements together to create humorous, inspiring, and entertaining stories. After graduating from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design with a Degree in Film Animation in 2001, he founded Meditating Bunny Studio. His short animated films have screened at film festivals around the world and have been broadcast in Canada by the CBC. In 2005, with a pre-license fee from the CBC, he completed the award-winning classically animated film, "What Are You Anyways?" The film is an exploration of his life growing up half-Japanese and half-Caucasian in a small Canadian town, and how he dealt with being typecast as a minority and overcame his struggle for self-identity.
After creating "What Are You Anyways?" the first animated film that explores Hapa issues, he has become an international spokesperson for mixed-race advocacy. The film has screened at over 40 international film festivals and won 7 awards including the award for Best Animated Short Subject at the 2006 Canadian Awards for Electronic and Animated Arts. Currently he is working on a documentary entitled, One Big Hapa Family about children of mixed-Japanese decent and the high Japanese Canadian interracial marriage rate. He has also written articles for national publications and lectured around the world at conferences and universities about mixed-race identity, cultural awareness, animation process, and Hapa issues. His latest award-winning film, Yellow Sticky Notes, winner of the 2008 CAEAA for Best Animated Short Subject and Golden Sheaf for Best Animation at the 2008 Yorkton Short Film and Video Festival, was animated with just a black pen on over 2300 sticky notes and is currently traveling on the international film festival circuit. On top of filmmaking, Jeff is also a college animation instructor and the Vice President of the Okanagan Film Festival.
Back to Conference Page
Caitlin Ohama-Darcus is an active member of the Japanese-Canadian community in Vancouver, contributing youth-oriented columns to The Bulletin magazine, performing as a senior member of Chibi Taiko, and working to preserve her community's history. Caitlin is currently an undergraduate student at the University of British Columbia, and plans to pursue studies in physiological and political science.
Coordinator:
Guest Speaker:
Jeff Chiba Stearns is an award-winning Canadian independent animation filmmaker, writer and artist, born in Kelowna, BC, of Japanese and European heritage. Using various formats like animation, documentary, and experimental, Jeff enjoys creating works aimed at children and adults that combine different philosophical elements together to create humorous, inspiring, and entertaining stories. After graduating from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design with a Degree in Film Animation in 2001, he founded Meditating Bunny Studio. His short animated films have screened at film festivals around the world and have been broadcast in Canada by the CBC. In 2005, with a pre-license fee from the CBC, he completed the award-winning classically animated film, "What Are You Anyways?" The film is an exploration of his life growing up half-Japanese and half-Caucasian in a small Canadian town, and how he dealt with being typecast as a minority and overcame his struggle for self-identity.
After creating "What Are You Anyways?" the first animated film that explores Hapa issues, he has become an international spokesperson for mixed-race advocacy. The film has screened at over 40 international film festivals and won 7 awards including the award for Best Animated Short Subject at the 2006 Canadian Awards for Electronic and Animated Arts. Currently he is working on a documentary entitled, One Big Hapa Family about children of mixed-Japanese decent and the high Japanese Canadian interracial marriage rate. He has also written articles for national publications and lectured around the world at conferences and universities about mixed-race identity, cultural awareness, animation process, and Hapa issues. His latest award-winning film, Yellow Sticky Notes, winner of the 2008 CAEAA for Best Animated Short Subject and Golden Sheaf for Best Animation at the 2008 Yorkton Short Film and Video Festival, was animated with just a black pen on over 2300 sticky notes and is currently traveling on the international film festival circuit. On top of filmmaking, Jeff is also a college animation instructor and the Vice President of the Okanagan Film Festival.
Back to Conference Page_______________________________________________________________________
