Big Fight in Little Chinatown (Cinematographer)
Documentary Feature | Runtime 88’ | 2022
Trailer
All across the globe, Chinatowns are under threat of disappearing – and along with them, the rich history of communities who fought from the margins for a place to belong. Big Fight in Little Chinatown is a story of community resistance and resilience. Set against the backdrop of the COVID pandemic and an unprecedented rise in anti-Asian racism, the documentary takes us into the lives of residents, businesses and community organizers whose neighborhoods are facing active erasure.
Big Fight in Little Chinatown documents the collective fight to save Chinatowns across North America.
Production Company: Eyesteelfilm
Director: Karen Cho
Executive Producer: Mila Aung-Thwin, Daniel Cross
Producer: Bob Moore
Cinematographers: Nathaniel Brown, Joshua Frank
Editor: Ryan Mullins
Festivals:
DOC NYC 2022 Premiere
Reel Asian 2022 : Honorable Mention, Best Canadian Feature
RIDM 2022 Winner, People’s Choice Award, Winner Women Inmate Jury Award (Dir. Karen Cho)
Big Sky Doumentary Film Festival 2022
Trailer
All across the globe, Chinatowns are under threat of disappearing – and along with them, the rich history of communities who fought from the margins for a place to belong. Big Fight in Little Chinatown is a story of community resistance and resilience. Set against the backdrop of the COVID pandemic and an unprecedented rise in anti-Asian racism, the documentary takes us into the lives of residents, businesses and community organizers whose neighborhoods are facing active erasure.
Big Fight in Little Chinatown documents the collective fight to save Chinatowns across North America.
Production Company: Eyesteelfilm
Director: Karen Cho
Executive Producer: Mila Aung-Thwin, Daniel Cross
Producer: Bob Moore
Cinematographers: Nathaniel Brown, Joshua Frank
Editor: Ryan Mullins
Festivals:
DOC NYC 2022 Premiere
Reel Asian 2022 : Honorable Mention, Best Canadian Feature
RIDM 2022 Winner, People’s Choice Award, Winner Women Inmate Jury Award (Dir. Karen Cho)
Big Sky Doumentary Film Festival 2022
LELEB (Director of Photography & Co-Director)
Short Film | Runtime 3:20’ | 2022
Watch on Nowness
Leleb, (sinking or drowning in Javanese) is a project about the futility and visceral grief of clinging to a home that will inevitably disappear. In central Java, Indonesia’s most populous island, human manipulation of the environment has caused coastal villages to begin to sink into the sea. Although the area has become increasingly unlivable, most residents still remain, clinging to the final vestiges of what is left of their communities. We seek to pay tribute to those who endure. Working alongside Javanese dancer Siko Setyanto and soundtracked by the experimental Javanese band Senyawa, Leleb seeks to be an intimate portrait of resilience and a reminder of the difficult and sometimes painful relationship between humanity and the space it occupies.
A film by Marc Ressang & Nathaniel Brown
Cinematography: Nathaniel Brown
Producer Marc Ressang
Performer: Siko Setyanto
Music: Senyawa(Rully Shabara and Wukir Suryadi)
CHINA STATE OF THE ART: CHEN NONG (Camera, stills)
Documentary Short | Runtime 3’ | 2020
A profile of ex-factory worker turned large format photographer Chen Nong, in his Ming Dynasty studio in Beijing.
Director: DJ Furth
Cinematography: Nathaniel Brown & DJ Furth
Art Director: Sakura Fisher
Produce: Moolah Creative
TahNibaa Naataanii (Director of Photography)
Documentary short | Runtime 5’58” | 2022
TahNibaa Naataanii, is a Diné master weaver living on Navajo Land outside Table Mesa. Dedicated artist and fierce advocate for traditional Navajo or Diné weaving, TahNibaa is working to expand ideas about weaving and deepen traditions. For TahNibaa Naataanii, and the Diné (Navajo) people, weaving is more than an artistic practice, it is a way of life that teaches and reinforces the connectivity to ancestral and spiritual philosophies of self, land, and community. Naataanii honors and maintains the ancestral weaving protocols and lessons that were passed on to her from her mother, her maternal grandmother, and all the grandmothers before her. Thus, she practices traditional Diné weaving methods by harvesting wool from sheep on her own land in the high desert, dying her materials using plants found in the Navajo Nation, and participating in weaving ceremonies and prayers to bless the nature of her work.
In addition to her own vision and artistry, TahNibaa Naataanii is recognized as a gifted and prolific mentor and teacher of holistic Diné weaving practice – from farming sheep to harvesting and dyeing wool, and through the complex techniques of developing and weaving textiles on a loom. She is also a celebrated interpreter of Diné weaving traditions, working with museums and cultural centers to tell the story and process of this remarkable art.
This piece profiles her practice.
Text draws from the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation and the NEA
Director: Olivia Merrion
Producer: Debra A. Wilson
Directors of Photography: Nathaniel Brown & Elliot DeBruyn
Editor: Lorena Alvarado
Client: National Endowment for the Arts for the 2022 Bess Lomax Hawes National Heritage Fellowship Awards
TahNibaa Naataanii, is a Diné master weaver living on Navajo Land outside Table Mesa. Dedicated artist and fierce advocate for traditional Navajo or Diné weaving, TahNibaa is working to expand ideas about weaving and deepen traditions. For TahNibaa Naataanii, and the Diné (Navajo) people, weaving is more than an artistic practice, it is a way of life that teaches and reinforces the connectivity to ancestral and spiritual philosophies of self, land, and community. Naataanii honors and maintains the ancestral weaving protocols and lessons that were passed on to her from her mother, her maternal grandmother, and all the grandmothers before her. Thus, she practices traditional Diné weaving methods by harvesting wool from sheep on her own land in the high desert, dying her materials using plants found in the Navajo Nation, and participating in weaving ceremonies and prayers to bless the nature of her work.
In addition to her own vision and artistry, TahNibaa Naataanii is recognized as a gifted and prolific mentor and teacher of holistic Diné weaving practice – from farming sheep to harvesting and dyeing wool, and through the complex techniques of developing and weaving textiles on a loom. She is also a celebrated interpreter of Diné weaving traditions, working with museums and cultural centers to tell the story and process of this remarkable art.
This piece profiles her practice.
Text draws from the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation and the NEA
Director: Olivia Merrion
Producer: Debra A. Wilson
Directors of Photography: Nathaniel Brown & Elliot DeBruyn
Editor: Lorena Alvarado
Client: National Endowment for the Arts for the 2022 Bess Lomax Hawes National Heritage Fellowship Awards