Ann Kaneko

ANN KANEKO is known for her personal films that weave her intimate aesthetic with the complex intricacies of political reality. An Emmy Award winner, her poetic feature Manzanar, Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust premiered at the 2021 Big Sky Film Festival and broadcast on PBS POV’s 2022 line up. She is a 2026 Coro Climate Resilience Leadership Network fellow, expanding her work in the climate justice space. She is currently developing 45/45, a personal film about intergenerational caregiving and cycles of life, and LAND, LABOR AND LOGISTICS, for which she was an 18th Street Arts Center California Creative Corps fellow and facilitated collective song workshops in the Inland Empire. Other films include Operation Owl, about burrowing owls, A Flicker in Eternity, based on Stanley Hayami’s diary; Against The Grain: An Artist’s Survival Guide to Peru, highlighting Peruvian political artists; Overstay, about Japanese undocumented workers, and 100% Human Hair, a musical for the AFI Directing Workshop for Women.

Fluent in Japanese and Spanish, Kaneko has been a Fulbright, Japan Foundation Artist, Film Independent Doc Lab fellow and Jackson Wild Multicultural Fellow. She has been funded by JustFilms/Ford, Doc Society, the Redford Center, CAAM, Vision Maker Media, Firelight Media, Chicken and Egg, and the Hoso Bunka Foundation. She is a member of BGDM, A-Doc, and New Day Films, a distribution coop. She teaches at the Claremont Colleges' Intercollegiate Media Studies Department and was the artist mentor for Visual Communication’s Armed with a Camera Fellowship.

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ABOUT 45/45

Spanning three generations of a Japanese American family, 45 years separates filmmaker Ann Kaneko from her mother and from her daughter and 90 years distance grandparents and grandchild. 45/45 weaves together a tapestry of images and observations, chronicling and celebrating growing up and growing old. Parents and children reverse roles as the “sandwiched” daughter, who doubles as filmmaker and caregiver, shares insights about the uncanny resemblance of life’s beginning and end. Everyday moments filled with the exuberance of youth contrast with accidents of a failing body, showing the preciousness of intergenerational relations and caregiving that supports these life cycles.