One of my favorite events in the San Francisco Bay Area since moving here in 1999 is attending CAAMFest. CAAM stands for the Center for Asian American Media. CAAMFest 2026 celebrated its 44th year as the nation’s leading showcase for films from Asian America and beyond, haven taken place May 7-10, 2026 in San Francisco Japantown again, like last year.
The film festival kicked off with welcoming remarks by CAAM Executive Director Don Young at the AMC Kabuki 8. Young took over in his role a year ago, and this is his first CAAMFest as Executive Director. He gave a shout out to former 8Asians blogger Dino-Ray Ramos, who was this year’s CAAMFest narrative features programmer curating films under the theme “Bad Asians, Good Trouble. It’s been a rough year for CAAM (and many other non-profits), where 40% of CAAM’s funding had been cut. I imagine a lot of federal funding sources dried up due to the current administration.
San Francisco Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, whose District 5 covers Japantown, then gave some opening remarks. He honored some people attending the festival, including Genny Lim, 9th Poet Laureate of San Francisco, and then introducing some representatives from the opening feature.
Opening Feature
This year, the opening feature to kickoff the film festival was ‘The A List: 15 Stories From Asia and Pacific Diasporas’ by HBO:
which highlights 15 stories of AAPIs, from the famous (Connie Chung, Tammy Duckworth, Kumail Nanjiani, Sandra Oh, Bowen Yang) to the not-so-famous. The documentary comes out on Wednesday, May 13, 2026, on HBO and will be available to stream on Max.
The documentary was terrific and the audience clapped after almost every profile that was completed. Those profiled came from different walks of life, different ethnicities and different points of view. Given the nature of AAPIs in the United States, a very common thread was the immigrant nature of the AAPI community and trying to “fit in” and be accepted.
After the screening, there was a Q&A with some of the documentary’s interview subjects as well as those involved with the film:
You should definitely catch the 1:25 minute documentary ‘The A List: 15 Stories from Asian and Pacific Diasporas’ when it becomes widely released – it’ll make you appreciate not only AAPI’s history within America, but also the history of the United States – which at its heart, is a story of immigrants.
The Gala
And as usual, the annual post-screening gala occured at the Asian Art Museum – about a mile or so from the AMC Kabuki 8, which featured food, drink, and music and access to the exhibits.
I always appreciate being able to attend and cover CAAMFest and as I’ve said many times, is one of my favorite annual events in the San Francisco Bay Area!
