Filmmaker via Skype

In this gorgeous, multi-layered documentary about immigration and integration, Ali Kazimi brilliantly weaves a rich tapestry of history and memory to offer an unusual portrait of a family of color in middle America.

For many minorities, home movies used to be a luxury, and their rare existence lends insight into personal lives otherwise omitted from moving image history. When Kazimi (who has been rescuing these orphaned and decaying home movies) found himself in an online bidding war for film footage from 1936 to 1951, he knew he had stumbled upon a rare artifact.

A 3rd i alumnus, Kazimi is well-known for his outstanding doc, A Continuous Journey, which chronicles the history of Sikh migration to Canada. Set in Chicago between the Great Depression and the post-war era, this award-winning film peeks into the everyday life of a commercial artist and his trailblazing wife, to reveal the experiences of a first-generation Chinese family in America.