History

Upon Jonathan Laxamana’s passing in December 2022, Jonathan’s brother, Joe, and many close friends and family wished to establish a fund to help the next generation of film students and creators pursue his same passion for film.  After an initial scholarship granted in Jonathan’s name at Addison Trail High School in Addison, IL in Spring 2023, the group searched for a way to truly connect the fund to Jonathan’s passion.  In Fall 2023, we launched an endowment fund at the University of Illinois within the College of Media.  The Jonathan Laxamana Endowment Fund will provide an annual scholarship to a Media & Cinema Studies student.  Plans also include supporting the annual University of Illinois Student Film Festival.  As Jonathan, his brother, and many of his lifelong friends are alumni of the University of Illinois, and more notably where Jonathan first discovered his passion for film, the endowment is a great memorial and connection to Jonathan and his alma mater.

The Jonathan Laxamana Emerging Filmmaker Award for AAPI Emerging Filmmakers, administered by the Foundation for Asian American Independent Media (FAAIM), will award two short film submissions to The Asian American Showcase in Chicago with a $500 award each. One award will be granted each to a submission in the Documentary Short Film and Narrative Short Film categories. Award winners will be determined by a panel of jurors, and awards will be publicly presented at The Asian American Showcase, held at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago from May 7-12, 2026.

 Award winners must meet the following criteria:

• The filmmaker(s) must identify as Asian American, Asian Canadian, Native Hawaiian, and/or Pacific Islander (AANHPI).

• The film must be selected and screened at The 2026 Asian American Showcase.

• The filmmaker(s) must identify as emerging or early-career. (Please note: FAAIM understands these career stage categories are always in flux, and therefore does not impart a strict definition for them. We generally understand an emerging or early-career filmmaker to be someone who has completed, or is in the process of completing, two or fewer feature films. However, we invite filmmakers to self-identify using their best judgment. Final determination is made by FAAIM staff and jurors.)

• The film must focus on an Asian American, Asian Canadian, Native Hawaiian or a Pacific Islander American central character, community, or experience.

• The total runtime of the film must not exceed 45 minutes.

• The film cannot be an episode or a segment of a series.

• The first theatrical screening date of the film must be on or after January 1, 2025. (Not including screenings for academic instituions or setting)

We are excited and proud to now partner with The Asian American Showcase to launch the Jonathan Laxamana Emerging Filmmaker Award to memorialize Jonathan’s work within the Chicago film festival arena with focus on AAPI cinema. In 2006, Jonathan created the Chicago Filipino Film Festival and led all activities of producing, promoting, and putting on the festival for over ten years.  Jonathan then went on to contribute significantly to the Asian American Showcase for several years.  As with the endowment at the University of Illinois, the Jonathan Laxamana Emerging Filmmaker Award is something that Jonathan would be proud to sponsor, representing his love for film and vision to help emerging film creators in the AAPI communities.

Paper Daughter (written and directed by Cami Kwan) - Narrative

A Chinese woman tries to enter the U.S. under the assumed identity of a deceased girl, contending with both the authorities and her personal guilt.

In the Morning Sun (directed by Serville Poblete) - Documentary

In an apartment on the other side of the world, a woman finds ways to stay connected to her family back home.

Cami Kwan is a Chinese-American director specializing in stop motion animation. She draws on her experience being queer and mixed-race to create stories for young audiences that explore emotions, relationships, identity and culture. She loves stories where the abstracts of emotion and identity are made manifest through magical realism. Bonus points for historical reimagining! Kwan began her career on the Emmy-winning preschool series Tumble Leaf before joining forces with her business partners to found their independent animation studio Apartment D, where she creates stop motion animated series for brands such as Monster High, American Girl and Sanrio. Kwan’s short film, Paper Daughter, is an official selection in the 2026 Annecy International Film Festival. Created as part of the Julia S. Gouw Short Film Challenge and supported by CAPE and Janet Yang Productions, Paper Daughter is a gothic Chinese American fairytale based on the immigration experience of Kwan’s great-grandparents Joy and Dep Chan, who immigrated to the US from China via Angel Island in 1926 and 1916 respectively.

Serville Poblete is a Toronto-based filmmaker and writer from Bleecker Street. His short documentary King's Court, produced with the National Film Board of Canada, premiered at Hot Docs 2025, earned a 2026 Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Short Documentary, and is now streaming on NFB.ca. His follow-up documentary In the Morning Sun premiered at SXSW 2026, where it won the Jury Award. The film is Oscar-qualified for the 2027 Academy Awards and continues to screen at festivals internationally. Poblete is currently in development on his second feature A Good Commotion and his television series The Centre, which was selected for the TIFF Series Accelerator Program in 2024.

Dinesh Das Sabu is an independent documentary filmmaker and media artist. His feature and short work has appeared on PBS, HBO, and at numerous festivals around the world. Dinesh co-produced his feature directorial debut Unbroken Glass with Chicago's Kartemquin Films. Unbroken Glass was screened at numerous film festivals and community-based events. Among its many distinctions, Dinesh won "Best Director" at the 2017 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival and the film was broadcast nationally on PBS’ America ReFramed in 2017. In 2014 Dinesh was a fellow in Firelight Media's Documentary Lab. He graduated from the University of Chicago in 2006 and earned his MFA in Documentary Film and Video from Stanford in 2019. He teaches at Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI.

Liz Rao is a Gotham-award nominated feature filmmaker, recently named a Vimeo Breakout Creator of the Year 2025 for Writing and Directing THE TRUCK. Rao is based in Brooklyn, with roots in Missouri, Tennessee, and Illinois, and is a Hear Us Grantee for her debut feature screenplay. Rao will earn her MFA at NYU Grad Film, in Screenwriting and Directing later this year. https://www.elizabethrao.com/

Anahita Ghazvinizadeh is an Iranian-American filmmaker, writer and educator. She got her BFA in Cinema, Screenwriting from Tehran University of Art, and her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her first short film When the Kid was a Kid won the best short film award from the Iranian Short Film Association, and her second short film Needle won the Cinéfondation 1st Prize at Cannes Film Festival in 2013. Anahita’s first feature They premiered at Cannes in 2017, and her latest film My Life is Wind (a letter) premiered at Locarno Film Festival in 2024. Anahita headed the Production and Screenwriting Arts programs at the University of Iowa before joining the faculty at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2024.

Together with Jonathan Laxamana, Larry Versola created the Chicago Filipino American Film Festival (CFAFF) in 2001, and served as its Festival Administrator until 2010. A unique festival that specialized in Filipino and Filipino/American films, CFAFF was influential in identifying and promoting talented filmmakers, and showcasing their works to a wider audience.  Inspired by Jonathan and his experience with CFAFF, Larry gave up practicing corporate law and founded 41EIGHTYSEVEN, a Chicago-based location services / production company. During the pandemic, he was an adjunct at Columbia's Cinema & Television Arts school, where he created and taught Columbia's first dedicated class about Location Scouting and Location Management. 

Over the past 10 years, Jason Matsumoto helped build Full Spectrum Features into a nationally-recognized multimillion dollar arts organization. Jason has produced or executive produced more than 20 short and feature-length films, including titles that have premiered at Sundance and Tribeca. He co-led the development of Full Spectrum’s digital cinematic history program, which has been awarded or presented at the American Historical Association, the National Council on Public History, and the Association for Asian American Studies.

Jason studied and performed taiko for more than 35 years. He led one of the Midwest’s premier taiko ensembles, Ho Etsu Taiko, as both executive and artistic director, and has consulted for Miyamoto Unosuke Shoten, a 160-year-old traditional Japanese instrument maker who officially serves the Emperor of Japan. Prior to a full time career in the arts, Jason spent a decade working in the financial derivatives industry as an equity options trader, and in regulatory oversight and strategic initiatives for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. 

Jason is the president of the Midwest Buddhist Temple’s board of trustees, a Council Leader of the U.S.-Japan Council (USJC), and remains involved in the Japanese American and broader Asian American community in Chicago and nationwide.