Kathryn Xian

born and raised in Hawai'i

studied film at New York University and Bard College

one of the original drafters and organizers of the Multi-Ethnic Studies Program (MES) implemented in 1993 at Bard College

Intent upon encouraging the growth of independent filmmaking in her home state of Hawaii, she co-founded Zang Pictures, Inc., the only local filmmaking collective which offers education in both digital video and 16mm film production to university interns and the public

The Problem with Being, her first of three feature length films, had been adapted from a stage play she had written in 1998 under the tutelage of renowned novelist Lois-Ann Yamanaka; excerpts from the stage play can be found in the Asian-American anthology entitled Take Out published by the Asian American Writers' Workshop in New York City

First Place winner and Audience Award winner in the short documentary category for her video entitled Constructions at the First Annual Short Movie Awards 2000, sponsored by PlanetOut and Ifilm

Constructions, a film about female identity and suicide, has also gone on to win a place among the best short films of 2001 Movie Awards of Girlfriends Magazine, the Adam Baran Award for Best Short Film, and local PBS and international internet broadcast

Constructions is distributed by the National Asian American Telecommunications Association

Producer/Director of critically acclaimed documentary Ke Kulana He Mahu: Remembering a Sense of Place which premiered nationally at the Smithsonian Institute on October 19th 2001 as a part of the D.C. Asian Pacific American Film Festival. This documentary (recipient of the 2002 Frameline/Horizons Film and Video Completion Award) is currently touring film Festivals from Australia to Berlin and has been slated for broadcast by WNET in New York (PBS)

responsible for fostering new, and reinforcing existing, alliances between the Asian Pacific Islander, Pacific Islander and Native American communities and organizations through the networking needed to conduct educational panels and screenings regarding Ke Kulana He Mahu

Organizations which have benefited include: the Asian Pacific Islander American Health Forum, the Asian Pacific Islander Wellness Center, the National Asian American Telecommunications Association, U.T.O.P.I.A, the AFSC (Hawaii) and the National Native American Aids Association

several newspapers, magazines and filmmakers have written about Zang Pictures' films including Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times, Variety Magazine, Filmmaker Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle, AsianWeek, the Honolulu Advertiser, the Honolulu Weekly, the Honolulu Star Bulletin, the Chicago Tribune, and director Darren Aronofsky of Requiem for a Dream

established and co-directed the Cinema Paradise~ Independent Media that Matters Film Festival in Honolulu which screened the U.S. premiere of the acclaimed international film 11'09'01

along with the University of Hawaii's Women's Studies Program, coordinated the Hawaii premiere of the Emmy award-winning film The Selling of Innocents along with a panel presented by Kelly Hill of Sisters Offering Support to raise local awareness of the trafficking of women and children for sex to and from Honolulu

unanimously nominated by the Hawaii State Teacher's Association for one of the 2003 National Education Association's Human and Civil Rights Awards.

Girl Fest Hawai'i

Vagina Monologues - Kathryn Xian - Honolulu Star Bulletin

Vagina Monologues - Kathryn Xian - Honolulu Advertiser

Contructions