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 currently 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 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 Pitzer College, and was the artist mentor for Visual Communication’s Armed with a Camera Fellowship.