Ann Kaneko’s documentary “Operation Owl” will be screened on Saturday, Oct. 25, at 3 p.m. as part of the Awareness Film Festival at the Illusion Magic Lounge, 1418 4th St., Santa Monica.
Under the deafening Ontario Airport flight path, burrowing owls nest on open lands … but not for long. Hungry for space east of Los Angeles, warehouse developers push out the scrappy owls and working-class Latine communities, alike. In this heist movie-meets-nature doc, are the owls or the land being stolen?
Kaneko will be in attendance to talk about the film and burrowing owls.
Info/tickets: https://awarenessfestival.org/buy-tickets/
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 was broadcast as part of the “POV” lineup on PBS in 2022.
She is in development on “45/45,” a personal film about the beginning and end of life.
She has screened internationally and been commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Endowment and the Skirball Cultural Center.
Other films include “A Flicker in Eternity,” based on Nisei soldier 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.