Eric Byler

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The creator of this article, or someone who has substantially contributed to it, may have a conflict of interest regarding its subject matter.
It may require cleanup to comply with Wikipedia's content policies, particularly neutral point of view.
Please discuss further on the talk page.
This article has been tagged since April 2007.

Eric Byler (born January 15, 1972) is an American film director, screenwriter and political activist. He identifies as hapa biracial, born to a Chinese American mother and a white American father.^[1] He grew up in Virginia, Hawaii (where he attended Moanalua High School), and California. He graduated from Wesleyan University in 1994, majoring in film. He currently resides in Gainesville, Virginia.

1 Filmmaker
2 Political activist
3 Film Criticism
4 Filmmography
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Filmmaker

Byler's senior thesis film, Kenji's Faith, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 1995, won six film festival awards, and was a regional finalist in the Student Academy Awards.

His first feature film, charlotte sometimes was nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards in 2003, including the John Cassavetes Award for Best Feature under $500,000, and a Best Supporting Actress award for Jacqueline Kim. The film was called "Fascinating and illuminating" by film critic Roger Ebert, and won numerous festival awards, including an Audience Award at South by Southwest Film Festival (SXSW) and the Best Dramatic Feature at the San Diego Asian Film Festival. The film was distributed theatrically by Visionbox and Small Planet Pictures before being released on DVD.

Byler's second feature is the charlotte sometimes quasi-sequel, TRE — winner of the Special Jury Award at the 2007 San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. TRE is being distributed in theaters and on DVD (May 6, 2008) by Cinema Libre Studio.

His third feature, Americanese, is an adaptation of Shawn Wong's seminal Asian American novel, "American Knees." It won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at SXSW, in addition to a Special Jury Prize for Outstanding Ensemble Cast, which includes Chris Tashima, Allison Sie, Joan Chen and Kelly Hu. The film will be released by IFC First Take in 2008. He also directed the PBS / ITVS Television pilot, My Life Disoriented.

He is currently producing/directing documentaries about about Asian Pacific Islander political empowerment. And, he is teaming with filmmakers Annabel Park and Jeff Man on an interactive documentary about the immigration battle in Northern Virginia: http://www.youtube.com/9500Liberty

He is a member of the Directors Guild of America and the Writers Guild of America.

SOURCES: http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117933164.html?categoryid=31&cs=1

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060330/REVIEWS/603300302

http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/reviews/cl-et-charlotte20jun20,0,683151.story

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2003/08/22/AR2005033115904.html

http://www.youtube.com/9500Liberty

[edit] Political activist

Byler has been active in past elections, often volunteering for canvassing efforts, as he did for John Kerry in 2004.

In fall of 2006, Byler's primary focus became the Virginia U.S. Senate election. In response to incumbent Sen. George Allen's use of the term "Macaca" on the campaign trail, referring to a South Asian American student from the University of Virginia, Byler and others rallied the Asian American community together, forming a group calling themselves "Real Virginians for Webb," to back Allen's democratic opponent, Jim Webb. Their efforts can be credited as a significant contributing factor to Webb's eventual victory, where he won the final vote count by a margin of less than 9,000. In 2007, Byler volunteered and created YouTube videos for the "121 Coalition," a national grassroots organization that helped to pass House Resolution 121, urging the Japanese government to acknowledge and apologize for military rape camps during WWII. The resolution passed on July 30, 2007.

During the 2008 presidential primary, Byler directed a music video of a song written and performed by artist Andres Useche, entitled "Si Se Puede Cambiar", in support of Sen. Barack Obama. The video was released on YouTube on February 22, 2008. Also in February '08, Byler established a political action blog on AsianWeek.com entitled Through Our Lens, co-authored by filmmaker Annabel Park.

SOURCES:

http://www.support121.org/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GkS3ViToGA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIQ5Nq1ApRQ

http://www.democrats.org/a/2006/12/huge_apa_turnou.php

http://news.asianweek.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=3151e146e345e441294133bfddbbce9d&this_category_id=169

https://www.aaldef.org/article.php?article_id=215

http://www.weta.org/theintersection/show_archive_episode.php?show_e_id=91