On the evening of Wednesday May 29, 2024 in Toronto, filmmaker Quentin Lee and his producing partner Cindy Au Yeung won the 2024 Canadian Screen Award for Best Comedy Special for their series Comedy Invasion’s episode “Rez Style,” beating out three other CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) productions. CHOPSO sat down to chat with Quentin on the evening of them leaving for Vancouver to prep and shoot their latest stand-up comedy feature, Rez Comedy, the first all Indigenous and all Canadian stand-up comedy feature film.

Nine diverse Indigenous comedians from all over Canada will star and perform in the first all Indigenous and all Canadian stand-up comedy feature film “Laugh Proud” and a live comedy event, world premiering and to be shot on Saturday June 15, 2024, at Vancouver’s historic Metro Theatre.

Boutique sales agent Wonderphil Entertainment has picked up Vancouver-based Barbara Lee’s feature documentary Sing My Song, launching worldwide sales at the Cannes Film Market. Asian American Movies (AAM.tv) will world premiere the documentary feature on streaming on October 14, 2024, this Canadian Thanksgiving.

World premiering at the upcoming Inside Out Film Festival in Toronto, Colette Vosberg’s documentary feature Unusually Norman brilliantly portrays “the gayest family” in Canada that spans three generations of queer women. CHOPSO takes the opportunity to speak with Colette about her queerly brilliant documentary feature before its world premiere

Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television’s nomination of independent creator Quentin Lee’s Comedy Invasion series for Best Comedy Special broke the Canadian stand-up comedy monopoly long held by Canadian Broadcast Corporation, better known as CBC. For the freshly established category of Best Comedy Special, the three other nominees all belong to CBC. Rejected by Canadian broadcasters from development to distribution, creator Quentin Lee funded the 8-part series by themself and distributed the series through their own niché streaming platform, Asian American Movies aka AAM.tv. As a supporter of independent cinema and media, CHOPSO took the opportunity to speak with creator Quentin Lee on their surprising nomination at the Canadian Screen Awards 2024.

Rika Ohara’s experimental feature “The Heart of No Place” imagines the life of Yoko Ono after the death of John Lennon. Rika herself plays the titular character Y. in her feature directorial debut that won accolades on its initial film festival circuit screenings. As the feature drops today on AAM.tv, I have interviewed Rika on her looking back at her own feature film.

On Saturday, March 9, 2024, I was invited to the world premiere of the fan fiction web series Hulkling and Wiccan, produced by and starring a fellow Yale in Hollywood colleague, Nathaniel Dolquist. Unfortunately, when I got out of the Polish Golden Award event for my former UCLA professor Jerzy Antczak late, arriving at the Hulkling and Wiccan premiere, I had already missed the screening. Nevertheless, Nathaniel was kind enough to send me a screener the next day and I was immediately a fan after watching the full 6 part mini web series which has a running time 12 minutes or so. With a nod to contemporary television like Modern Family and the superhero cinematic genre, despite being a fan fiction series, Hulking and Wiccan created a genre on its own where the superhero genre meets LGBTQ cinema.

On the brink of the re-release of Chink, the low budget thriller about the first Asian American serial killer, CHOPSO talks with producer Quentin Lee who was the brainchild behind this feature film originally released in 2013. Directed by their UCLA film school buddy Stanley Yung, Chink world premiered at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival winning Jason Tobin, who plays the titular protagonist, a Breakthrough Performance Award. Chink also won Best Thriller Feature Film at Burbank International Film Festival.

Filmmaker Leslie Streit collaborated with Robin McCain on their upcoming immersive installation “When I Become a Ghost” to be unveiled from 6 pm to 9 pm on February 24 at San Francisco’s Pastine Projects. CHOPSO took the opportunity to interview Leslie on her latest artistic venture.

On the week of the 4th annual Yale in Hollywood Fest streaming all its programs free and worldwide, I sat down with programmer Melissa Dawn…