To help celebrate National Coming Out Day and uplift the stories of queer and trans Asian Pacific Islanders, Third World Newsreel is proud to announce the release of the short film UNSPOKEN: ASIAN AMERICANS ON COMING OUT TO IMMIGRANT PARENTS <https://vimeo.com/235471992>. The film explores the challenges of talking with immigrant parents about queerness, gender identity, and sexuality. In the film, six LGBTQ Asian Americans read coming out letters that they wrote to their parents - sharing what they would say if they didn't face language and cultural barriers in communicating with family. *YouTube: https://youtu.be/QHih2ArX2Xg <https://youtu.be/QHih2ArX2Xg>* *Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/235471992 <https://vimeo.com/235471992>* The project was inspired by the filmmaker's own experience coming out this summer. "I realized I didn't have any language, either in Korean or English, to talk about being queer with my parents in a way that we would all understand," said Patrick G. Lee, the filmmaker and a queer-identified Korean American. "So I ended up writing a letter to them in English and asking friends to help translate it into Korean, in the hopes that my parents would read it and start to understand more of who I am." Given current levels of hate violence, intolerance and prejudice toward minorities in the U.S. and abroad, it's incredibly important for LGBTQ people of color to be able to find support and affirmation from their families and communities. There are about 325,000 LGBTQ Asian Pacific Islander people in the U.S. (Source: The Williams Institute <https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/research/census-lgbt-demographics-studies/lgbt-api-report-sept-2013/> .) "This film represents the power of independent media to address diverse representation and bring often marginalized voices forward," said JT Takagi, the Executive Director of Third World Newsreel. "TWN's mission is to support progressive, grassroots projects like these that speak to the experiences of communities of color." A 25-minute version of the film will be released later this year and screened at LGBTQ community events across the U.S., as a part of coming out workshops and family acceptance support groups. "I hope the film will help initiate difficult conversations around what family acceptance can look like within immigrant communities. And I hope queer and trans Asian Americans will be able to see a part of themselves reflected in the film," Lee said. This Third World Newsreel Workshop Production was made possible in part by the Asian American Writers' Workshop, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the Peace Development Fund and individual donors. Third World Newsreel is a non-profit progressive media center that nurtures and facilitates media by and about people of color and social justice issues through distribution, production, exhibition and training. #TWN50years. MEDIA CONTACTS: Patrick G. Lee - filmmaker Email: [log in to unmask] Phone Number: 847.809-5382 <(847)%20809-5382> JT Takagi - Third World Newsreel Email: [log in to unmask] ᐧ ---- Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite http://www.ScreenSite.org