C3: What We Built and What Comes Next: Voices from The A List

The A List: 15 Stories from Asian and Pacific Diaspora was built to feel like a family space; a window into lives shaped by diaspora, culture, and community. Now, the director and subjects from across the film step out from behind the lens to have a conversation about what it meant to participate, why representation is only the beginning, and what AANHPI storytelling and community looks like moving forward.  

EUGENE YI
Eugene Yi is a filmmaker whose directing work includes The Rose: Come Back to Me (2025 TriBeCa Festival, an audience award winner; Busan International Film Festival; CJ 4DPLEX), and Free Chol Soo Lee (with Julie Ha; 2022 Sundance; Independent Lens; News and Documentary Emmy winner). His editing work includes Farewell Ferris Wheel (2018 News and Documentary Emmy-nominated); and Out of My Hand (2015 Berlinale; Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award nominee). He is a member of the Asian American Documentary Network, part of the inaugural cohort of the Karen Schmeer “Diversity in the Edit Room” program, and a member of the Directors Guild of America. His print journalism has been honored with numerous awards, including a 2013 LA Press Club Award for an oral history of the 1992 LA riots and rebellion from a Korean American perspective for KoreAm Journal.  He is the proud father of one, and works out of Los Angeles and Palisades Park, New Jersey.

KATHY MASAOKA
KATHY NISHIMOTO MASAOKA was born and raised in multicultural Boyle Heights. In the late ’60s, the Vietnam War and Asian American Studies at University of California, Berkeley, were important influences on her values. Since the 1970s, she has worked on youth, worker, and housing issues in Little Tokyo, and Japanese American redress. Currently co-chair of the Nikkei for Civil Rights & Redress (NCRR), she also served on the editorial team for the book NCRR: The Grassroots Struggle for Japanese American Redress and Reparations; helped to educate about the camps through the film/curriculum, Stand Up for Justice; and worked on the NCRR 9/11 Committee to help build relationships with the American Muslim community through programs like Break the Fast and Bridging Communities. 

She represented NCRR to support the rights of Korean and other minorities in Japan, and is involved with Nikkei Progressives. She also works on issues such as Black reparations through the NP/NCRR Reparations Committee, as well as support for Comfort Women, the rights of immigrants, and Little Tokyo’s future. 

CLIFF KAPONO
Professional free surfer. PhD chemist. Discovering innovative ways to protect our ocean while riding the best waves on the planet. His award winning work has been featured by the New York Times, TED, National Geographic, Nature, The Explorers Club, Outside Magazine, The Surfers Journal and more.

Moderator: DINO-RAY RAMOS
Dino-Ray Ramos is an award-winning journalist and media entrepreneur. In 2021, he founded DIASPORA, which evolved into a nonprofit media organization in 2025. Prior to that, he served as an editor at Deadline Hollywood, where he created, produced, and hosted the GLAAD Media Award-winning New Hollywood podcast 

A sought-after media consultant, Ramos has partnered with organizations including GLAAD, Amazon/MGM Studios, Hulu, Lionsgate, Film Independent, the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM), Center Theatre Group, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the Producers Guild of America (PGA), and the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment (CAPE). He has also served as adjunct faculty at Columbia College of Chicago.

His editorial work has appeared in Vogue, Entertainment Tonight, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Oakland Tribune, and others. He also created, produced, and hosted the Problematic Fave and Green Room podcasts. He has served on juries for the SXSW Film and TV Festival, NewFest, and the Philadelphia Film Festival, and served as a film programmer for CAAMFest 2026. In 2020, he was named to Gold House’s A100, which recognizes the most impactful Asian Americans in the country. He is a member of GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics and the Critics Choice Association.

Precedes

THE A LIST: 15 STORIES FROM ASIAN AND PACIFIC DIASPORAS

Directed by Eugene Yi

What does it mean to be AAPI? Trailblazers from Sandra Oh to Sen. Tammy Duckworth, Kumail Nanjiani to Connie Chung and more, reflect with joy, humor and sorrow on finding community and navigating their prismatic identities in this HBO Original documentary.