Kenn Kashima

Kenn Kashima, ACE, is the kind of filmmaker whose work pulls you in without a lot of noise or ego. He started out strong—his 35mm short, NOTES ON A SCALE, made it into both Telluride and Locarno, which, honestly, isn’t something you just stumble into. He’s also got a few other shorts under his belt, like A RHYTHMICAL REFLECTION and COLORED PAPER. That last one even scored the Chiyo Kuwahara Creative Arts Scholarship, not too shabby. Kashima took a shot at the world of PSAs with VOICE YOUR VOTE, which, fun fact, was the first Asian Pacific American PSA to actually get people out to vote. The cast? Pure gold: Ming-Na Wen, Mako, Margaret Cho, Russell Wong, Amy Hill, BD Wong, and Tamlyn Tomita—basically, a who’s who of Asian American talent. He almost had a feature, A RHAPSODY IN RICHMOND, ready to roll before a casting mess derailed things—classic Hollywood, right? After that, he pivoted hard into editing, tackling thirteen indie features. He’s worked on some big ones: YELLOW with John Cho, AMERICANESE with Joan Chen, Sony’s THE DEBUT, and CHARLOTTE SOMETIMES. Those last two even landed on Rotten Tomatoes’ “60 Best Asian American Movies Of All Time.” TV-wise, he’s dipped his toes everywhere, from AMERICA’S GOT TALENT and THE BACHELOR to IRON CHEF AMERICA. Basically, Kashima isn’t just an editor—he’s a true storyteller who hates chopping up stories into pieces for the sake of network “pods.” He lives in LA, edits like a man possessed, practices Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and, apparently, tries (mostly in vain) to get his daughters to appreciate jazz.