Roll out the red carpet! It's time to announce the winners of the 2022 Tiny Film Festival.

Amateur filmmakers were invited to submit works up to 1 minute in length. Join us as we applaud the artists and present their films on the gallery screen at the Downtown Library.

See contest details and how to enter at aadl.org/tinyfilms.

Granted near-unfettered access to the notoriously insular Studio Ghibli, director Mami Sunada follows the three men who are the lifeblood of Ghibli – the eminent director Hayao Miyazaki, the producer Toshio Suzuki, and the elusive and influential “other director” Isao Takahata – over the course of a year as the studio rushes to complete two films, Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises and Takahata’s The Tale of The Princess Kaguya.

A chance encounter with a mysterious cat sends Shizuku, a quiet schoolgirl, on a quest for her true talent. Together with Seiji, a boy determined to follow his dreams, and enchanted by The Baron, a magical cat figurine who helps her listen to the whispers of her heart, Shizuku embarks on a life-changing adventure that takes her beyond the boundaries of her imagination.

This 1hr 51m film released in 1995 by Studio Ghibli is rated G.

This event is in partnership with the UM Center for Japanese Studies 

Author and community member Frances Kai-Hwa Wang joins AADL staff to discuss the documentary 1989 Who Killed Vincent Chin? She will provide background information about this anti-Asian American hate crime that happened in Detroit in 1981 and connect it to violence against Asian American people today.

An in-person screening of this film will occur on Tuesday, May 3rd at the Downtown Library. A virtual screening will also take place immediately prior to this event.

Join AADL for a film screening of Far East, Deep South, the award-winning documentary feature film that follows the Chiu family on a surprising journey through Mississippi in search of their lost family history. Along the way, they meet a diverse group of local residents and historians, who shed light on the racially complex history of the early Chinese in the segregated South. Their emotional journey also leads them to discover how exclusionary immigration laws like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 impacted their family and they learn how deep their roots run in America.

Join us to view a 2014 documentary film that chronicles the uprising that toppled the government of Ukrainian president Victor Yanukovich and has since developed into an international crisis between Russia and the West.
 

This 130-minute film is unrated. You can also find DVD copies in our collection here.

Join us to view a 2014 documentary film that chronicles the uprising that toppled the government of Ukrainian president Victor Yanukovich and has since developed into an international crisis between Russia and the West.

This 130-minute film is unrated. You can also find DVD copies in our collection here.

On a hot summer night in Detroit, Ronald Ebens, an autoworker, killed a young Chinese-American engineer with a baseball bat. Although he confessed, he never spent a day in jail. This gripping Academy Award-nominated film relentlessly probes the implications of the murder in the streets of Detroit, for the families of those involved, and for the American justice system.

This 1989 87-minute documentary is unrated. At 5pm you can watch AADL staff will discuss this film with author Frances Kai-Hwa Wang. Click here to learn more.

Cured (2020) takes viewers inside the campaign that led to a pivotal yet largely unknown moment in the struggle for LGBT equality: the American Psychiatric Association's 1973 decision to remove homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses. Combining eyewitness testimony with newly unearthed archival footage, the film reveals how a small group of impassioned activists achieved this unexpected victory.

This 80-minute documentary is unrated.

Travel to an open air market in Benin to learn about the African origin of many staple American dishes including candied yams, okra, black-eyed peas, and rice. Directed by Roger Ross Williams and featuring Jessica B. Harris, Romauld Hazoume, and Stephen Satterfield. This episode is 59 minutes and is rated TV-14.