Professor Kawai won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Narrative Short at the 37th Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival! The film ZONA, directed by Professor Kawai, is now Academy Award® qualified!

The Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival is the largest film festival in Southern California dedicated to showcasing films by and about Asians & Pacific Islanders around the world. The Festival presents approximately 150 films and mediaworks that celebrates Asian Pacific filmmakers and stories, attracting entertainment celebrities, civic and community leaders, industry professionals, and film enthusiasts in a celebration of the ongoing accomplishments by Asian Pacific cinematic artists.

It has been a busy festival run for Professor Kawai. ZONA has played at festivals nationwide, including Maryland Film Festival, Palm Springs ShortFest, Nashville Film Festival, Tacoma Film Festival, and the Hawaii International Film Festival. 

ZONA | 2021 | 16 mins | Written and Directed by Masami Kawai

In the near-future Los Angeles, a drought has worsened and the water supply has stopped running. An old immigrant Japanese woman braves the city to search for water for her neighbor in need. 

I’m a Los Angeles-born filmmaker, who divides my time between Oregon and LA. My work integrates issues of race, class, gender, and what it means to be an immigrant across multiple modes of filmmaking. I’m interested in exploring these issues through techniques of realism to reveal the complexity of the human experience. In the past, I’ve been a selected director in the Francis Ford Coppola One-Act play series. I also received a fellowship from LA’s Visual Communications, which supports emerging Asian American filmmakers and was supported by the Panavision New Filmmaker’s grant. In addition, I’ve participated in Film Independent’s diversity program, Project Involve. My work has screened at various venues, including the Rotterdam Film Festival, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, LA Asian Pacific Film Festival, Portland International Film Festival, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts.